Pana Hema-Taylor: How acting can be enlightening...
Pana Hema-Taylor plays one of the petty criminals in hit TV show Westside. His other roles include based on a true story TV movie Resolve, The Brokenwood Mysteries, hit movie Boy, and road drama The Most Fun You Can Have Dying.
ScreenTalk Short: Pua Magasiva
Actor Pua Magasiva was best known in New Zealand for playing nurse Vinnie Kruse on Shortland Street. Magasiva passed away in May 2019.
Penny Ashton - Funny As Interview
She always thought she'd become an actor — but comedy poet Penny Ashton says poetry "chose" her. Ashton has toured her solo shows around the world, and in this Funny As interview she covers a range of topics, including: Being a cabaret act — doing a mix of poetry, songs and comedy — and lamenting that there’s less cabaret around in New Zealand than there used to be Producing Rhys Darby’s first solo show and Paolo Rotondo's play Little Che, and meeting poet Pam Ayres Representing New Zealand on a poetry tour of England, and different styles of slam poetry around the world The time a man yelled out "lose weight" during a performance — and the great response from a woman in the front row that inspired a new poem — plus the “new breed of woke bros coming through” Doing 130 shows in 55 towns across five countries between April 2017 and May 2018, at which point she "couldn’t remember what my husband looked like" How tough performing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival is, how phenomenally beautiful the city is, and how "f***ing terrible" the weather is
Vincent Ward: A very original filmmaker...
Vincent Ward has won an international reputation as one of New Zealand's most original and visionary filmmakers. Vigil and The Navigator played in competition at the Cannes Film Festival (the first Kiwi films to do so). In Hollywood, Ward made Robin Williams afterlife drama What Dreams May Come. Urewera-set docu-drama Rain of the Children in 2008 revisited characters from Ward's 1980 documentary In Spring One Plants Alone.
Close to Home: New Zealand’s first TV soap opera…
Close to Home first screened on TV One in May 1975 and ran for eight years. The popular and ground-breaking series was New Zealand television's first soap opera. It was based in Wellington and centred around the trials and tribulations of the Hearte family. At its peak in 1977, Close to Home attracted a twice weekly audience of one million viewers.
Pua Magasiva: On small but perfectly formed roles…
Samoan-born actor Pua Magasiva was inspired by his older brother Robbie Magasiva to get into show business. Best known for playing nurse Vinnie Kruse in Shortland Street, he also had roles in TV productions Power Rangers, Outrageous Fortune and Diplomatic Immunity. He also appeared in films Sione's Wedding (as Sione), 30 Days of Night, and Matariki. Magasiva passed away in May 2019.
ScreenTalk Short: Alison Mau
Alison Mau has been a regular on New Zealand television for over 20 years, including time on Newsnight, Breakfast, and at the launch of TVNZ’s primetime show Seven Sharp.
Jeremy Corbett - Funny As Interview
In his third interview for Funny As, comedian and 7 Days presenter Jeremy Corbett discusses more singular comedic pursuits, including his extensive career in radio and TV. On top of mentioning how his university degree ran a “distant third” to DJing on Radio Massey and the capping revue, he talks about: Being part of the team that established Energy FM in New Plymouth — including Steven Joyce in his pre-MP days — and being the only one to leave early and miss out on becoming a millionaire Spending 18 years as breakfast host on More FM, then losing interest when radio became homogenised: the “oh I put the coloureds in with the whites in the washing machine, have you ever done that? Text us” moment The awkward moment where he played a tasteless parody song to singer John Mayer in a radio interview Memories of a comedy pilot with Paul Holmes and Mike Hosking, which turned into “a pissing contest between the two of them to be either the most knowledgeable or funniest” 7 Days being his "dream show”, the importance of the writers' room, and getting goosebumps watching the first show go to air Changing a te reo comedy routine on The Project, after taking on board feedback that the routine was “not particularly woke” — and the challenge of delivering the routine in Māori Jeremy Corbett can also be seen in these Funny As interviews with his brother Nigel, and as part of comedy group Facial DBX.
Michael Galvin: Shortland Street’s Dr Love...
Actor Michael Galvin is Shortland Street’s longest-serving actor, having played Dr Chris Warner on the soap for most of its 20-something years. During that time on the show, his character has survived four marriages, drug-dealing, an emergency tracheotomy, and earned the title ‘Dr Love’. Outside of Shortland Street, Galvin has written stage plays and appeared in TV series Cover Story and feature film The Climb.
ScreenTalk Short: Colin McRae
The career of producer/director Colin McRae spans 40 years, much of it in current affairs and documentary (plus time as Three's Head of Sport).