Robyn Malcolm

In November of 2010 Robyn Malcolm appeared on television to say a heartfelt goodbye to Outrageous Fortune, the show about a Westie family that she had starred in over six seasons. It was just one part of an acting career that stretches back more than two decades.

After graduating in 1987 from drama school Toi Whakaari, Robyn Malcolm worked extensively in theatre. In 2003 she won an International Actors Fellowship at the Globe Theatre in London.

From 1994 to 1999 Malcolm played nurse Ellen Crozier on soap success Shortland Street. The role earned her a nomination for Best Actress at the 1998 Television Awards. In 2002 she won another Best Actress nomination for playing the title role in television feature, Clare, based on the cervical cancer experiment at National Women's Hospital.

The film's inspiration was Clare Matheson, whose book Fate Cries Enough chronicles how over 15 years she became an unwitting participant in a medical experiment where carcinoma in situ was often left untreated.

In 2000, Malcolm was one of the founding members of the New Zealand Actors' Company along with Tim Balme, Katie Wolfe and future Outrageous Fortune director Simon Bennett. The company produced and toured successful stage productions throughout the country, before the failure of King Lear.

Malcolm has acted in feature films Absent Without Leave, The Last Tattoo, Perfect Strangers, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, and Christine Jeffs' Sylvia.

She has appeared in a number of other TV series including soap satire Serial Killers, written by Outrageous Fortune co-creator James Griffin. In 2005 she won the Best Performance by an Actress Award, at the NZ Screen Awards for her role in the show.

Malcolm traveled to France in 2005 to front the documentary Our Lost War: Passchendaele, about the World War I battle in which her great uncle and many others lost their lives.

In 2005 Malcolm took on the role of Cheryl West, in Outrageous Fortune. Born in the mind of co-creator Rachel Lang as a brasher, more comical take on the white trash family Lang had created for Mercy Peak, the show would go on to become the longest running drama in New Zealand TV history.

Bringing her substantial experience to the part, Malcolm helped created an iconic character on New Zealand television: bold, fearless and cleavaged to the hilt, bogan beauty Cheryl headed the passionate West whanau until the final episode in November 2010, which rated better than any in Outrageous Fortune's six-season run.

Malcolm has won television awards for Outrageous Fortune over most of its six seasons (Air NZ Screen Awards Best Actress 2007, TV Guide Best Actress 2006, Qantas TV Awards Best Actress 2005 and 2008).

In 2010 Malcolm took another centre stage role with The Hopes and Dreams of Gazza Snell, the first feature from award-winning Insiders Guide director Brendan Donovan. Malcolm plays Gail, a woman who feels like an outsider in her own family, thanks to her husband's obsession with go-kart racing. Gazza Snell debuted in the 2010 round of film festivals.

She will next be seen in Australian feature Burning Man, in a cast which includes fellow Kiwi successes Kerry Fox and Simone Kessell.