Ian Hughes: on playing the sad clown...

Interview – 2012

Actor Ian Hughes made an impact on playing the "sad clown" Ant in acclaimed TV series and movie Topless Women Talk About Their Lives. He went on to play roles on TV shows Shortland Street, Hercules, Xena, and Doves of War. He has also appeared in feature films including The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, and moved increasingly into directing — including dozens of episodes of Shortland Street.

In this ScreenTalk, Hughes talks about:

Having no idea of the plot on Topless Women Talk About Their Lives
Loving playing the ‘sad clown’ Ant on the show
Watching in awe as Lucy Lawless kept things going on the set of Xena
How being involved with Shortland Street became all-consuming
Realising being in The Lord of the Rings was a once in a lifetime opportunity
Making comical short film Bogans for $800
How they managed to get Peter Jackson to do a cameo in the film
Acting in Katherine Mansfield drama Bliss — and being told by director Fiona Samuel that his character was not a victim

This video was first uploaded on 5 March 2012, and is available under this Creative Commons licence. This licence is limited to use of ScreenTalk interview footage only and does not apply to any video content and photographs from films, television, music videos, web series and commercials used in the interview.

Interview, Camera and Editing – Andrew Whiteside

There was no script . . . one of the things we made for Harry [Sinclair] the wrap party was the script. We actually went back, got all the pieces of paper . . . they put all the day shoots together, bound it, and said, 'actually here's the script'. So the last thing to arrive was the script. It was the complete antithesis to every other project....
– Ian Hughes on the unusual nature of TV series Topless Women Talk About Their Lives

Ian's Full Profile