Rose Matafeo
Rose Matafaeo won attention in 2018 when, at age 26, she won the top comedy award at the Edinburgh Festival. Matafeo has also made a mark on-screen. She was a presenter on TVNZ youth show U Live, before writing and performing for Jono and Ben. A lead writer and co-star of sketch show Funny Girls, she has become a regular face on English television. In 2019 she began making Kiwi film comedy Baby, Done.
Rose McIver
After appearing briefly in The Piano at age three, Rose McIver went on to star in big budget fantasy series Maddigan’s Quest while still a teen. Since then she has played one of the passengers in true life train disaster tale Tangiwai - A Love Story, and completed a five season run in American series iZombie, starring as a crime-solving zombie. She is set to co-star in Kiwi movie musical Daffodils.
Nicola Murphy
Actor Nicola Murphy made her big screen debut in 1995 in the offbeat fantasy Jack Brown Genius. She followed it by playing Rose in the acclaimed Magik and Rose, before co-starring opposite American actor Judge Reinhold in rural romance Wild Blue.
Alison Bruce
With a CV that includes everything from judges to Amazon queens, Alison Bruce has often been cast as the strong unsmiling type. Yet two of her biggest screen roles completely break that mould: the fraudulent but well-meaning fortune teller in 2001 feature Magik and Rose, and the eccentric mother in award-winning series Being Eve.
Vanessa Alexander
Vanessa Alexander attracted attention as a rookie director with her low-budget feature Magik and Rose. Since then she has compiled an impressive list of achievements as a producer (Being Eve, Cargo), director (the opening episodes of Outrageous Fortune and Agent Anna) writer (Love Child), script editor, and lecturer. These days Alexander works in Australian television.
Rachel Lang
Writer Rachel Lang, MNZM, has played a major hand in a host of New Zealand television dramas, including Outrageous Fortune, the iconic saga of a West Auckland family trying to go straight. Her CV also includes the long-running Go Girls, small town dramas Jackson's Wharf and Mercy Peak, plus Westside, The Almighty Johnsons, This is Not My Life, Filthy Rich and The Blue Rose.
Mark Beesley
With the movie Savage Honeymoon and classic TV show Outrageous Fortune, Mark Beesley established himself as the man to call when dealing with rough and tumble families from West Auckland. Elsewhere the talented director and sometime producer has shown his gift for melding comedy and drama on The Almighty Johnsons, Insiders Guide to Happiness, and Xena: Warrior Princess.
Antonia Prebble
Antonia Prebble played the manipulative Loretta West on Outrageous Fortune over six seasons, before starring in prequel Westside. Prebble began her screen career aged 12 on TV series Mirror, Mirror, and did five seasons on sci-fi hit The Tribe during her school holidays. From 2013 her career got even busier, with starring roles in legal thriller The Blue Rose, Witi Ihimaera film White Lies and bio-thriller The Cure.
Graeme Tetley
Graeme Tetley began his long scriptwriting career with Vigil, one of the most acclaimed New Zealand films of the 1980s. He went on to co-create police show Shark in the Park, collaborate extensively with director Gaylene Preston (Ruby and Rata, Bread and Roses), and co-write Out of the Blue, the story of the Aramoana massacre. Tetley passed away on 13 March 2011.
Stelios Yiakmis
Stelios Yiakmis got his screen break as heartthrob doctor Johnny Marinovich on Shortland Street, a role he played for five years. The part Greek, part Kiwi actor has gone on to act on both sides of the Tasman, including hit show McLeod's Daughters, acclaimed 2006 movie Jindabyne, and Kiwi crime drama The Blue Rose.