GLADIATORS: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, 7.30pm, Channel 10 and 10 play
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She was the 2023 queen of I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here, and was the mainstay of the Australian Netball Team from 1993 - 2007, the last four as captain.
Liz Ellis has sports commentated at many events, and has sat behind the desk at The Project on a number of occasions.
Her media career has been "quite a surprise" to her, and now, at the age of 50, she is co-hosting the new Gladiators with Beau Ryan.
"I've let my hair go grey and went onto Seek thinking I should get a real job.
"Doing [I'm a] Celebrity was amazing and it got me to a broader audience I guess. My little girl goes to netball, and I would turn up and nobody much cared. But now it has introduced me to a new generation in a big way.
"I wouldn't even had envisaged it [co-hosting Gladiators] even a year ago. My daughter talked me into it.
"Once upon a time athletes fit in training around other careers. Now it is more professional, and far more demanding, so they are able to focus on being full-time athletes."
Ellis says the contenders are awesome.
"I see them at the gym... they are very fit people. But the gladiators are bigger, stronger, and almost super human. Yet they all have great charisma."
She says the gladiators already have the personality to go with their personas.
"They get to inhabit their characters and you can see them grow into them even more. They live in this parallel universe - when you look at the costumes and the set, it's like the Marvel universe. It's really glamorous.
"At times the contenders are on a hiding to nothing but they all have great back stories. Australians love to cheer for the underdog and some of the contenders do really well. They are so courageous. The challenges test body and mind to the limit, but it is also a lot of fun. There is an air of theatre about it, but it's all real."
When asked if she would consider taking on some of the challenges, her answer was a hard "no".
"Maybe 30 years ago," she says.
And why do the contenders put themselves through such torture? "They are desperate to become Gladiators themselves.
"The contenders follow them [Gladiators] on Instagram; they love the high camp outfits; but at the end of the day it's a contest.
"When they win they are so excited because they put their heart and soul into the challenges, which are both physical and mental."
"The contenders go hard so the gladiators have to, too. We [Ellis and Ryan] are able to look at the contest from the sporting aspect, but you can get a real insight into what motivates them to be in the contest when we chat with them.
Ellis says there are some imaginative takes on the gladiator names the contenders would choose if they were to become gladiators.
"They are already pretty motivated anyway, but they take the experience away with them. They are so courageous, there are moments where you think 'they're not going to come back from this'."
Her favourite thing about hosting the show is how excited people get when she tells them "we are doing Gladiators".
"It's so cool... at dinner last night, people we were talking with were so pumped it's coming back.
"So many people loved the original, they will bring the kids along to watch the next generation of Gladiators."
