EstherStephens
- Actor
Having grown up in a musical family, Esther Stephens found it hard to decide between music or acting. So she did both. After training in performing and screen arts, she won an ongoing role as fashionista Olivia Duff in Go Girls. Since then, Stephens has had major parts in WWI drama When We Go to War and Westside. On stage, she won acclaim as suffragette Kate Sheppard in musical That Bloody Woman.
Screenography
Biography
Esther Stephens is often asked whether she would be an actor or a singer, if she had to choose. It is not a question she is keen to indulge.
NZ Herald writer Alan Perrott has called Stephens' childhood "a Howick version of the Von Trapps". Music runs in the family, including a father who wrote musicals. Stephens knew early on that she wanted to be a performer. "Dressing up, inventing characters and playing up to my family: I loved it all, especially those musicals," she told Perrott. "But I didn't have the physical discipline to be a dancer, so it was always going to be a combination of singing and acting."
Awards
2017 New Zealand Television Awards
Nominated for Best Actress: for Westside, Series two
“I think my priorities have changed drastically since I discovered this love of screen acting, and that really wasn't something I ever anticipated. So, from here, anything is a bonus really.”