Mike Smith: On directing drama and passing on Russell Crowe...

Interview – 2014

Versatile director Mike Smith has made an enormous amount of New Zealand drama. Highlights of his lengthy television CV include Radio Waves, Duggan, Serial Killers, The Almighty Johnsons, Nothing Trivial, and award-winning tele-movie Siege. Smith also had a big hand in creating Heroes (about a pop band on-the-make), yokels comedy Willy Nilly, children’s drama The Lost Children and comedy Sunny Skies. He was one of the key players in the launch of Outrageous Fortune and in 2025 made his first movie, The People We Love.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Smith talks about:

The unforgettable personnel officer when he interviewed to join state television
Vital lessons learned from drama head John McRae, while directing 70s soap Radio Waves
Producing and directing Heroes, the drama series about a pop band
Failing to cast a young unknown called Russell Crowe
Differences between Australia and NZ, after eight years largely working across the Tasman
Returning home for drama series Cover Story
Creating shows after setting up a production company with editor John Gilbert
Making successful short Willy Nilly, about two 'rural idiots', and learning about the complexities of comedy on the hit TV series which followed
Casting secrets from his days as producer of Outrageous Fortune: including a lack of network enthusiasm for star Robyn Malcolm, and Munter originally being a Pākehā
Working with 'fantastic' producer/director Mark Beesley on The Almighty Johnsons
How in a sense directing is a little bit like sex
Taking different approaches to turning true life stories into drama with Siege and Underbelly: Land of the Long Green Cloud
Lessons learned as a director

This video was first uploaded on 28 April 2014, 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 and Editing - Ian Pryor. Camera - Jess Charlton

...one of the problems as a director is you never get to see directors work. It's not dissimilar to having sex: we all know everybody does it, but you don't get to see other people do it . . . that's one of the reasons it's interesting talking to other actors and other technicians, because they'll tell you how other directors work.
– Mike Smith on the challenges of finding out the different ways that directors do their job

Mike's Full Profile