ScreenTalk

Actor, acting teacher, and artist Grant Tilly has played cow cockies, assassins, missionaries, and German villains in funny hats. And that’s not even counting his long-running stage career, which has included a run of classic Kiwi plays, one of which became acclaimed movie Middle Age Spread.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Tilly talks about:

• how people sometimes still recognise him from 60s TV show Joe’s World, and the topics he was told never to mention on early series In View of the Circumstances
• acting in 70s mega production The Governor, and the challenges of competing on screen against his bad haircut
• being allowed to go solo by director John Reid while making two farmers and a dead Dad comedy Carry Me Back, for a memorable scene in which his character finally tells his father what he really thinks of him
• squaring off against Men in Black star Tommy Lee Jones for a fight scene in movie epic Savage Islands
• how his career as an actor, stage designer, and co-founder of Wellington’s Circa Theatre has intersected with the works of writer Roger Hall – including his acclaimed performance as a philandering headmaster in Middle Age Spread
• playing a repressed accountant who becomes obsessively interested in a masseuse in movie Skin Deep
• the challenges of portraying real life people on screen
• the similarities between war and movie-making

This video is available on YouTube to embed and distribute via a Creative Commons licence.

Danielle Cormack began acting on stage, but in her mid-teens won a coveted role in the popular 80s soap Gloss. Growing up on screen led her to a one-year stint on Shortland Street, playing sweet and innocent nurse Alison Rayner. Cormack starred in the TV show Topless Women Talk About Their Lives and then went on to the film version of the project. Her pregnancy was incorporated into the film and her performance earned her a best actor award at the 1997 Film and TV Awards. Cormack has appeared in a number of feature films including The Price of Milk, Channelling Baby, and Separation City. She recently appeared in the TV drama The Cult.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Cormack talks about:

• Growing into womanhood while appearing on Gloss
• Playing the lovable nurse Alison Rayner on Shortland Street
• Being the first of the original cast to leave the soap
• Appearing in Xena and not always enjoying the intensity of the show’s fans
• How becoming pregnant changed Topless Women Talk About Their Lives
• Giving birth on screen a week after giving birth in real life
• Why Channelling Baby was her favourite filmic experience
• Working with a deliciously naughty cast and crazy director on Separation City
• Feeling a little isolated on the set of The Cult

This video is available on YouTube to embed and distribute via a Creative Commons licence.

Petra Bagust grew up in Christchurch, studied fine arts at Canterbury University and waited tables before being lured into regional TV station Cry TV.

And so began a screen career during which she has hosted many of NZ’s most popular shows, including madcap youth series Ice TV from 1996, and its sequel Ice As, travel show Travel.co.nz, real estate series Hot Property in 2003, the feel-good Dreams Come True, game show Snatch our Booty with Oscar Kightley and Nathan Rarere in 2005, Sing Like a Superstar (2005), and The Perfect Age (2006).

Fronting big live shows like Christmas In The Park and Fight for Life (2001, 2004), Bagust became a regular live anchor for TV3. More recently Bagust fronted daily news satire show @Seven, as well as the factual series What’s Really In Our Food, for which she was nominated for a 2009 Qantas Best Presenter award.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Bagust talks about:

• Considering a TV career over a career as a painter
• Her first experiences at regional station Cry TV
• How she landed her initial audition for Ice TV, and what it was like working on the show
• One of the golden rules of doing travel shows
• Hosting big live shows like Christmas in the Park
• Making What’s Really In Our Food, and the follow up show to come
• Her love of NZ design

This video is available on YouTube to embed and distribute via a Creative Commons licence.

Scott Wills began his screen career in the early 90s, with appearances in soap Shortland Street and in short films including Ouch, Permanent Wave and The Hole (shown at the Clermont Ferrand Short Film Festival in France).

In 2000, Wills was nominated for two acting awards (one for Ouch and the other for his supporting part in romantic comedy Hopeless) and also starred in feature film Stickmen, a role which earned him the award for best actor at the 2001 New Zealand Film Awards.

Wills followed Stickmen with a run of television performances, including Interrogation and Doves of War.

Big-budget vampire feature Perfect Creature put Wills alongside British actors Saffron Burrows and Dougray Scott, and in 2009 his performance in family drama Apron Strings earned him a Qantas Film and Television Award for Best Lead Actor. In the same year Wills appeared as Saul, the troubled head of security in TV thriller The Cult.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Wills talks about:

• His early work with Danielle Cormack’s underwear
• His personal nightmare at the premiere of Hopeless
• His thoughts on improving the NZ Film and TV awards
• Why he spent time with policemen from Auckland Central CIB
• What it was like working on big budget feature Perfect Creature
• How he crafted his award-winning performance in Apron Strings
• An insight into his disturbing character Saul in The Cult

This video is available on YouTube to embed and distribute via a Creative Commons licence.

Former Commonwealth Games athlete Kirk Torrance (Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairoa) struggled with asthma and school as a child, before realising his potential as an internationally competitive swimmer. Following his exploits at home and abroad in the pool, Torrance graduated from Toi Whakaari and embarked on a successful career in film and television. His most memorable performances to date include Toa in Fish Skin Suit, Lee Kapene in Shortland St, Holden in award-winning feature film Stickmen, and detective Wayne Judd in the hit TV series Outrageous Fortune.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Torrance shares his experiences on:

• Growing up as an asthmatic kid in Dargaville
• Traveling overseas to swim on the world stage
• Facing unexpected nudity at drama school
• Issues behind the scenes of Fish Skin Suit
• Shooting feature film Stickmen
• His double life on Shortland St
• The Outrageous audition process for Wayne Judd, and the complexities of realising the character
• Facing his family with Wayne Judd’s mustache

This video is available on YouTube to embed and distribute via a Creative Commons licence.