Ken Blackburn: often the bad guy...

Interview – 2012

British-born actor Ken Blackburn emigrated to New Zealand as a child. In his long career, Blackburn has appeared in theatre and screen productions in New Zealand, Australia and Britain. He is arguably best known for his portrayal of The Boss in the popular sitcom Gliding On. His other TV credits include Close to Home, Hunter’s Gold, Moynihan and Shortland Street. On the big screen he acted in Rest for the Wicked.and starred in Skin Deep.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Blackburn talks about:

Enjoying playing a devious lawyer on the soap Close to Home
Working on location in Central Otago for the series Hunter’s Gold
Wishing he’d bought the horse he worked with on the show
Playing the quintessential bureaucratic boss in Gliding On
How the actors were given freedom to add to the scripts
Having a hair dyeing mishap on the set of Sea Urchins
The joy of working with the three young Māori actors on the show
Feeling that the writers made his character too abrasive in Shortland Street
Narrowly escaping death jumping from a helicopter in The Grasscutter
Why working on Rest for the Wicked was like a reunion with mates

This video was first uploaded on 27 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

I think the boss actually personified every Headmaster I'd ever operated under, who was sitting on a superannuation job, and didn't want anything disturbed . . the boss in Gliding On epitomised the public service, and everything that represented in terms of how many pencils you were allocated during the week.
– Ken Blackburn on his role in Roger Hall office comedy Gliding On

Ken's Full Profile