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
Interview Credit
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
Copyright
This video was first uploaded on 09 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.
