Peter Hayden

Peter Hayden’s career has been double-pronged. His extensive resume as stage and screen actor stretches from Beyond Reasonable Doubt to stage-play The Daylight Atheist. Hayden has also spent more than 25 years as a maker and presenter of nature documentaries.

Peter Hayden first began acting on stage. His double screen careers in acting and documentary began in tandem in the late 70s, although by the 90s the documentary work had taken centre-stage.

Hayden’s early screen work included small roles in TV epic The Governor, soap opera Close to Home, and acclaimed Arthur Allan Thomas docu-drama Beyond Reasonable Doubt.

The glory period acting-wise came in the mid 80s. Hayden won a leading role in award-winning Maurice Gee TV serial The Fire-Raiser, as the teacher to whom the story’s young characters confide. He also won a GOFTA for portraying 1860s Presbyterian minister Alexander Don in acclaimed goldmining tale Illustrious Energy.

Hayden’s most front and centre role in this period was 1986 road movie Arriving Tuesday. Made on the smell of an oily rag, Tuesday marked a rare Kiwi stab at producing an intelligent screen romance. Hayden plays the flawed but charismatic sculptor who goes travelling with old flame Judy McIntosh.

Tuesday and Illustrious Energy arguably won less attention than they deserved, partly due to their small-scale releases. Far more people saw Hayden in a throwaway role in car crash romp Shaker Run (as Lisa Harrow’s boyfriend), or heard him providing voices for the hit movie of Footrot Flats, including that of villain Irish Murphy and Cooch, the 'greenie' neighbour.

Peter Hayden’s second career is closely tied to the rise of documentary company NHNZ, which began in 1978 as the Natural History Unit, a small team of wildlife enthusiasts and programme-makers at TV1’s Dunedin studios. These days the company has offices in Beijing and Washington, and their programming has expanded across many fields.

Hayden was there at the beginning, recruited by future NHNZ boss Michael Stedman to write and narrate highly successful 1980 documentary Seven Black Robins. Hayden’s mixture of screen experience and science knowledge  (he had a degree in animal physiology from Massey University) made him the right man for the job.

Hayden would go on to write, narrate and occasionally direct for long-running catch-all nature series Wild South. He also co-hosted children’s show Wildtrack, which in the early 80s, won the Feltex Award for best children’s programme three years straight.

Later he personally undertook two important journeys for the Natural History Unit. As director and presenter of 1985 series Journeys Latitude South 45, Hayden examined New Zealand’s geology and history by following the 45th line of latitude across the South Island.

Three years later Hayden won a writing award at the Listener Film and TV Awards for his work on Journeys in National Parks, which he also presented. The programme saw him on location with a range of directors, from Barry Barclay to longtime colleagues Mike Hacking and Neil Harraway.

Moa’s Ark (1990) proved a vital stepping stone in the Natural History Unit’s gradual rise to multi-national programme maker. This time Hayden handed the microphone to bearded British naturalist David Bellamy, as they explored New Zealand’s unique nature and geological history. Hayden directed and produced. 20 years later he is revisiting some of its theories with a new show, Weird Edens, which explores unique evolution on islands around the world.

In 1997 Fox Television Studios purchased an 80 percent share in the Natural History Unit, and soon after, the whole company - now renamed Natural History New Zealand Ltd. Hayden was promoted to Head of Production Development. Five years later he spearheaded the company’s first moves into programme-making in China.

In 2006 Hayden left New Zealand to spend a year with NHNZ’s Amsterdam-based distributors Off the Fence. The same year, Equator won a Gold Medal at the New York Festivals (Hayden executive produced, and was one of the show’s writers). He now contracts for NHNZ as a series producer, where his work has included Animal Planet and the 13 part Buggin’ With Ruud, featuring extroverted bugman Ruud Kleinpaste.