Peter Hayden: nature man...

Peter Hayden's voice is known to a generation of New Zealanders; he has presented and narrated hundreds of nature documentaries. Among them are pioneering show Wild South, and Journeys Beyond Latitude 45 South. Hayden is also an actor: his screen appearances include Maurice Gee's The Fire-Raiser, Footrot Flats and romance Arriving Tuesday.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Hayden talks about:

Being a storyteller for both documentary and drama productions
How Wild South mirrored the growth in conservation in New Zealand
Creating Moa’s Ark with famous Brit conservationist David Bellamy
The delight of making Journeys Across Latitude 45 South and sailing on a reed boat across Lake Te Anau
Riding a terrified horse in a battle scene for epic miniseries The Governor
Playing the "dupe" who finds the planted bullet cartridge in Beyond Reasonable Doubt
Accidentally breaking the jaw of a fellow actor in The Fire-Raiser

This video was first uploaded on 9 November 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 – Andrew Whiteside

We started off making the first series essentially about New Zealand birds, and mainly birds that were about to become extinct, or so we thought — such was the parlous state of conservation back then. I mean people just didn't understand what needed to be done. And so it was very much thought by many people to be a last record of a lot of these species.
– Peter Hayden on the state of conservation in New Zealand when he presented the first series of Wild South in 1981

Peter's Full Profile