Ken Blackburn: Always the bad guy...

Ken Blackburn is a British born actor and writer who 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 best known in this country 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. His film credits include Skin Deep and Rest for the Wicked.

In this ScreenTalk, 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 is available on YouTube to embed and distribute via a Creative Commons licence.

Interview, Camera and Editing – Andrew Whiteside