The Taskmaster interviews: Ania Magliano

Why did you want to do Taskmaster?

I was a big fan so it was crazy to get that phone call. I remember on that day I was quite stressed because it was July, and I was about to do Edinburgh so, to combat my stress, I'd gone for a walk on Hampstead Heath without my phone.

I got home and I had so many missed calls from my agent and she was like, ‘You have to call me’ and I was like, ‘Oh, my God, I'm going to be dropped’, but then we spoke and she told me I’d been offered Taskmaster. It had always been such a career dream of mine but I thought I’d probably end up doing it when I'm in my fifties or something.

I'm such a fan of the show that I actually couldn't watch it for a bit because I found it too stimulating, then I couldn’t watch it once I knew I was doing it because I didn’t want to mess with my experience of it by watching someone else doing it.

Why did you want to do it so badly, if that’s not too obvious a question?

Because, first of all, it looked so much fun and whenever I watch it, you can tell that everyone’s having an amazing time doing it. It really lets everyone show the core of themselves and why they're funny, without having to push through. 

On Taskmaster, you’re just doing what you would do for real in this situation, and that's all they want. It really appealed to me, that notion of just being myself and having fun. I've got so much joy out of watching it in the past, so being a part of it was really exciting.

Were you competitive?

It changed moment by moment. Sometimes I wanted to do the task really well. I’ve reflected on some of the tasks and realised that I love authority. Someone like Maisie (Adam) would come in to the room to do a task and instantly have beef with Alex whereas I was more, ‘Absolutely, I'll do whatever you want.’ I never kicked back.

Other times I didn’t try as hard, and there's a correlation between how close it was to lunchtime. The tasks I did before lunch were usually the ones where I put in less effort because I could literally smell the catering.

There was one team task right before lunch, and production thought it'd take us about 20 minutes but it took us over an hour, and we could all smell lunch in the next room as we were getting nowhere fast. It was proper torture.

Did you surprise yourself in any way or learn anything about yourself?

The authority thing has been something that I've picked up on about myself. I thought I would be quite good at all the arty tasks but Greg scored me quite low on some of the painting ones, which is unjust, but you've got to let go of that.

After every task, as I was waiting for them to prepare the next one, I didn’t want to go on my phone and go back into the real world so I’d get my tablet out and do a drawing of the task and write down how I thought I did, as a reminder. Looking back on it now, I can see that I had no gauge a lot of the time! I often thought I’d done quite well and then it got to the studio and I realised I’d missed something totally obvious.

Did being a mega-fan of the show help you to think outside the box and understand the tricks that might be played?

Yeah, I definitely had a few where I could straight away see the thing that was in the room, and that was really funny because then you come to someone like Sanjeev, who never got it.

But their tricks are amazing. There was one on the first day where, as the task ended, it turned out that there was something really obvious the whole time, and I didn’t clock it at all. Alex told me later that they often do something like that on the first day so that in the next few tasks, we’d be constantly looking behind ourselves to find the answer – but they’re always one step ahead, and that tactic won’t work a second time. 

You always think you've cottoned on to something, but they know you think that, so they change it. They’re so cunning.

Was there anything that surprised you about the show?

The thing that I found surprising is probably more to do with the studio element than the tasks. It’s quite a lot to process when you're watching the tasks back on the big screen, and you're reacting to that, and you’re reacting to everyone else’s version of the task, as well as to what Greg and Alex are saying. And at those moments I often felt like I was watching Taskmaster from the audience: it's hard to remember that you're still in it when you’re processing all of those elements.

A few times, I had to actually bring myself back into the studio because I felt  I was dissociating: flying up above myself and watching TV. I had to say to myself, come on, get back into it. 

What was your relationship like with Greg in the studio?

I love authority, but I also love justice, so when I realised that justice would fail me, that's when I realised he’s a dictator. 

Being a mega fan, though, you must know there’s no point trying to sway him?

Due to a deep sense of narcissism, I thought I'd be the first one to figure out how to do it, so I kept trying. You never go in fighting, though. You have a moment where you get a score you think is unfair and you go, okay, am I going to fight this with him or not? 

But I’ve learned you should never believe that you're going to get more points by fighting him. Maybe you'll say something funny but if you're thinking, ‘I'm actually going to change his mind on that’, it's a losing battle.

What was your relationship with Alex like?

I generally didn't feel that confrontational with Alex, although there was one task where I really lost my temper because you had to say what was missing, it drove me mad. I wrote about in my notebook afterwards and I stayed up at night thinking about it for the next few weeks. 

But with Alex, there was a part of me in the studio watching him do tasks with other people and I felt like I'd been cheated on: ‘Oh, he's been doing this with four other people as well, I thought what we had was special.’

Did you dream about Taskmaster while filming it?

Yeah, in the studio week especially.  I dreamed there was one prize task which was the biggest thing that will also betray you, and I couldn't think of anything for it, and I knew Maisie had something really good, and I was really stressed about it. I woke up and I was like, okay, that's not real, but I still have to go in and do a really good prize task today, so I couldn’t quite shake off that feeling. It really seeps into your subconscious. 

Some of my friends came to watch one of the recordings and stayed for a drink in the Green Room, and I was like, ‘Hmm, there’s a sign up in the Green Room, and there’s an apple on the table, and maybe they’re all connected’, and my friends were like, ‘’ou’ve been doing too many tasks. They’re not clues!"

This show changes the way your neurons are firing, because they train you to overthink everything, and you can’t get out of that mindset for ages. 

Tell me about the rest of the contestants, starting with Maisie.

She’s great. I loved seeing her get angry at Greg and Alex, because it was very cathartic for me, and it was inspirational. Maisie and I sat next to each other, so whenever a task came up, I’d go, ‘Oh God, it’s this one’, and Maisie wouldn’t remember any of them. I guess it’s because I wrote them all out in my notebook, so they're really imprinted in my mind, so I whispered them to her. And her outfit is so good!

What about Phil Ellis?

Phil’s hilarious. He made me cry with laughter: he just will do anything. I feel very lucky to be on a show with someone who does not care for their dignity. Phil’s probably the person I knew the best before coming onto it, from both being at Edinburgh Fringe at the same time, so it was really nice to be doing it with someone who I knew, although not that well. It would be a different dynamic if I had a good friend on the show, but it was nice to have a friendly face.

And Reece Shearsmith?

I do find them all really funny, but there's something about Reece and the way he can give someone a look which speaks a thousand words, which I find hilarious. It’s when he leans over and pulls his glasses down and looks at Greg and Alex: that's my favourite thing. I really loved seeing him lose it with them. 

And he’s so good at the creative tasks. You can really tell he’s the guy that did Inside Number Nine because he’s got this amazing way of thinking that is so cool to see.

And finally, Sanjeev Bhaskar?

Sanheev’s also someone who can be funny with just a look. He feels like an actual fatherly figure: the story could be that Greg's abandoned me at birth, and Sanjeev has raised me as his. 

He’s so friendly and so positive about everything, and he was so kind to me. I felt a bit unsure about doing the show with Reece and Sanjeev because, obviously, they're hugely successful, famous people.

I assumed that the producers would pick people who were nice but, even so, I was pleasantly surprised by how friendly they both were, and how open and easy to talk to they were as well as interesting and interested in us. 

It definitely felt like a group of people doing Taskmaster, rather than five contestants on a show competing against each other. Sanjeev is more of a, ‘Let’s get this task over with so we can all go home’ whereas I’m the opposite and I never want them to end. 

That’s why the mix has worked well, because you've got some people who feel quite derisive towards Greg and Alex and the tasks, and then you've got some people like me and Phil who are genuinely madly enthusiastic and like puppy dogs going along with it. That’s a good balance.

• Taskmaster series 20 starts at 9pm tomorrow on Channel 4.

» Greg Davies​ and Alex Horne​
» Maisie Adam​
» Sanjeev Bhaskar​
» Phil Ellis​
» Reece Shearsmith​

Published: 10 Sep 2025