‘I needed to walk away’: Matt Day breaks down over harrowing family discovery on Who do You Think You Are?

It’s been a big couple of weeks for Matt Day. He’s been nominated for a TV WEEK Silver Logie for Best Lead Actor in a comedy – but on top of that, viewers have seen him overcome with emotion in Who Do You Think You Are?, as he’s learnt how close his grandfather came to death in World War II.

Matt, 54, explains in the episode that his mother Rhonda grew up on a farm in Gippsland. He remembers visiting his grandfather Phil when he was a young boy, and he knew his grandfather fought in WWII, but he never talked about it, “which, I understand was typical of men of his generation”.

“He died in 1984 when I was 12, so I never had the chance to speak to him about it as an adult,” Matt tells TV WEEK. “I think that’s one of the sad ironies of the show; you find out all this extraordinary stuff and the person you most want to talk to about it is gone.”

In the episode, Matt finds out that his grandfather enlisted in Leongatha and was sent to Rabaul, in modern-day Papua New Guinea. When the Japanese invaded in 1942, the Australians were vastly outnumbered.

Although there aren’t many photos of the invasion, Matt is able to see a painting of the battle in a storage facility at the War Memorial in Canberra. Moved to tears, he needs to walk away.

“His unit came under intense shelling and gunfire, and at some point the order was given: every man for himself,” Matt says. “Maybe because I work in a visual medium, seeing it depicted so vividly just made it real in a way that reading about it couldn’t. It’s so vastly different to my own life experiences at 22.

Matt then hears the incredible story of how his grandfather got out alive when so many young men died.

Later in the episode, Matt learns about his father Peter’s side of the family. As a child, he didn’t know that side of the family as well as he would have liked because his parents split when he was very young.

What Matt discovers is that his ancestors were very wealthy. Having grown up without that kind of wealth and privilege, he says his feelings were “a bit mixed”.

“There was this strange feeling a little removed from that story,” he says. “I felt a bit like Cousin Greg from Succession, suddenly aware there’s this whole other world on your family tree that you had no idea about.”

As for the Silver Logie nomination, for his work in Strife opposite Asher Keddie, it’s Matt’s first, even though he’s had roles in everything from A Country Practice to Tangle to Rake.

“I was genuinely surprised,” Matt admits, “even though I knew what we’d created was good, particularly the scenes between me and Asher who I love working with. For me, it always comes down to the writing, and Sarah Scheller’s writing on Strife was excellent, so I’m really happy about it.”