In her teens she played rebellious Jan in soap opera, Close to Home, attended drama school, and on venturing into the professional world, started winning roles, including TV series Seekers, with Temuera Morrision. She played unhappy working class wife Raewyn in an award-winning performance in Danny and Raewyn, an episode in the About Face series, directed by Gregor Nicholas.

She met her husband and fellow actor, Michael Hurst, at drama school and they have collaborated on many theatre, film and television projects: from a theatre adaptation of Kafka’s The Trial, to the colonial glamo-drama drama of feature film Desperate Remedies.

Ward-Lealand talks to NZ On Screen about her wide experience: in theatre (including with innovative eighties theatre company, Theatre Corporate), comedy (with Harry Sinclair and Don McGlashan in The Front Lawn and in Aussie sketch comedy series Full Frontal), to feature films including Leon Narbey’s The Footstep Man and Larry Parr’s Fracture.

Ward-Lealand also discusses her applauded theatre shows reprising Marlene Dietrich songs and cabaret classics. For details, including Auckland festival performance dates, visit Ward-Lealand’s website here.

This interview is available to embed and distribute on YouTube.

Credits: Direction and Interview – Clare O’Leary, Camera and Editing – Leo Guerchmann