Kirk Torrance: nudity, swimming and the fight to become Wayne Judd...

Interview – 2010

Former Commonwealth Games athlete Kirk Torrance (Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairoa) struggled with asthma as a child, before realising his potential as a competitive swimmer. Later Torrance graduated from Toi Whakaari and found a successful acting career. His most memorable performances include Toa in Fish Skin Suit, Lee Kapene in Shortland Street, Holden in hit movie Stickmen — and detective Wayne Judd in Outrageous Fortune.

In this ScreenTalk, Torrance talks about:

Growing up as an asthmatic kid in Dargaville
Traveling overseas to swim on the world stage
Facing unexpected nudity at drama school
Issues behind the scenes of Fish Skin Suit
Shooting hit feature Stickmen
Swinging from drugdealing to doctoring on Shortland Street
The Outrageous audition process to win the part of Wayne Judd, and the complexities of realising the character
Facing his family with Wayne Judd's moustache

This video was first uploaded on 2 March 2010, 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 – James Coleman

With character descriptions, I find they give you a list of things: 'this person's like this, this person is like that, this is their job'. And they tend to map out the job, rather than the person. So my opinion of Wayne Judd was more about the man, rather than the cop . . . [in] the original audition they wanted to see a bit of a hard-ass to it, whereas I thought this guy is a tired guy who perhaps doesn't love the force as much as he used to love the force.
– Kirk Torrance on bringing his own take to the character Wayne Judd in Outrageous Fortune

Kirk's Full Profile