Shavaughn Ruakere

Aged 18, New Plymouth-raised Shavaughn Ruakere landed her first screen job: five years presenting on children’s show What Now?. Then she moved to London, and won a gig co-presenting What Now?'s English equivalent, SM:TV Live. Since presenting for C4 back home, Ruakere has moved increasingly into acting. From 2011 she did a three year stint on Shortland Street as nurse Roimata Ngatai. Later she was a solo Mum with a brain tumour (in Darryl: An Outward Bound Story) and a Māori woman in 1914 Auckland (in miniseries When We Go To War). In 2016 Ruakere was the Los Angeles reporter for Seven Sharp.

I think for me it's just a matter of a camera light switching on, or walking onto a stage, and somehow I can be someone else. Shavaughn Ruakere on being able to go into performance mode, in her ScreenTalk interview with NZ On Screen