Award-winning TV and radio presenter Baz Ashmawy has revealed that he was determined to succeed after being told he didn't have a future in television.
The 44-year-old Dubliner opened up about his life and career in a wide-ranging interview with the RTÉ Guide in which he described going from being told his telly career was "finished" to winning an International Emmy award for the much-loved Fifty Ways to Kill Your Mammy.
"I was done, finished. I was told by someone high up in RTÉ that I didn't have a career in telly," he said.
"I respected that person and wasn't angry about what he said. But I had been doing this for years at that stage and didn't know anything else.
"It was also what I loved and I believed I was really good at it. So I went from there to 18 months later standing on a stage in New York holding an Emmy thinking, 'How the hell did that happen?'
"It was pure piggery, determination and the rest. I was helped by so many people but that last bit, that last 500 yards, that's all on your own."
Ashmawy also spoke about undergoing double lung surgery in his mid-thirties, which he said has changed his outlook on life.
"I looked at the world a little differently after that. Up to that stage, I felt invincible," he said.
"I was about 35 or 36 or so and had done How Low [Can You Go?, TV series] for a few years and had jumped off stuff and swam with sharks and rode bulls and all of a sudden, you realise you're not indestructible, that you could have died.
"I'm 44 now. My dad was 52 when he died. We are very different men. He didn't look after himself and he died because of that.
"I want to be here for the long run. There are loads of things I want to do for myself and with my kids. I have a hunger for life."
The TV presenter's new RTÉ show Wingman debuts this Sunday. The series sees him helping ordinary people to take on dream projects.
He said it was "the toughest thing I've ever committed to" and "very intense" to make.
Read the full interview in the new RTÉ Guide.
Wingman kicks off on Sunday, April 28 at 9.30pm on RTÉ One.
