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Debbie Newby-Ward

Actor

Debbie Newby-Ward got her break playing a rebellious teenager on 1990s horse drama Riding High. After studying acting at Unitec, and a run of theatre and television roles, she joined hit show Nothing Trivial as Emma, an optimistic but unlucky in love teacher. Newby-Ward was also winning attention as the domineering wife in an ad campaign for Tower Insurance. After taking a break from the screen to start a family, she joined the cast of Shortland Street in 2015 as wife, mother and embezzler Margaret Hannah. She'd already appeared on the show twice before  including one of her earliest screen roles, as teenage girlfriend to Nick Harrison.

I do tend to see things coming way before Emma ever would, so I guess that makes me more critical than her (or shall we call it less naïve?). Being more critical than Emma isn't hard though — she really doesn't have a bad bone in her body! Debbie Newby-Ward on her Nothing Trivial character, in an interview for the TVNZ website