Game of Thrones Star Joins Top of the Lake
Gwendoline Christie, who plays popular Game of Thrones character Brienne of Tarth, will join Mad Men star Elisabeth Moss in a new season of the much-praised Jane Campion TV show Top of the Lake,…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Martin Henderson Not Taking Fame Too Seriously
Just how did the star of Grey’s Anatomy New Zealander Martin Henderson, 41, get so comfortable with the slings and arrows of a business which can literally plaster you sky high on billboards one…
Lucy Lawless Separating Real Life from Xena
In an interview with Australia’s Sunrise breakfast television programme, New Zealand actor Lucy Lawless, who shot to fame with her role as Xena over 20 years ago, said she was more than happy to…
Director Taika Waititi’s New Film “A Love Letter to 1970s New Zealand Cinema”
Taika Waititi spoke with Vice about his new film Hunt for the Wilderpeople, which stars Julian Dennison, Sam Neill, Rachel House, Oscar Kightley and Rhys Darby and is based on Wild Pork and Watercress…
Sam Neill to Play Texan Patriarch in TV’s The Son
New Zealand actor Sam Neill will star in the AMC television network drama The Son, playing the patriarch of a Texas family in a multigenerational story of the clan’s rise and fall. Production on the…
Jono Kenyon To Star in Shonda Rhimes ‘Toast’
Kiwi actor Jono Kenyon has landed the male lead in Toast – ABC’s hybrid comedy pilot from Shonda Rhimes and Betsy Beers’ Shondaland – alongside Grey’s Anatomy alumna Tessa Ferrer. “So excited to announce my next project! Lead role in an…
Mark Vette Teaching UK Dogs How to Fly Planes
New Zealander Mark Vette, a professional animal psychologist and zoologist, is currently working on new British television show, Dogs Might Fly. Vette, who taught Monty, the giant schnauzer, to drive a car,…
Lesley Vanderwalt’s Post-Apocalyptic Beauty Tips
New Zealand-born Lesley Vanderwalt, who won both an Oscar for hairstyling and make-up at this year’s Academy Awards and the equivalent at the 2016 BAFTAs, talks to Vogue about bringing Mad Max: Fury Road’s…
White Lies Unfolds with Inexorable Weight
The 2013 feature film by Mexican director Dana Rotberg, White Lies, is “quiet, graceful, stately and infused with slow tension,” according to New York Times reviewer Paul Wester. “Set in rural New Zealand, the movie…
Zoë Bell Stands in for Herself in Camino
Quentin Tarantino’s “favourite stunt double,” New Zealander Zoë Bell, 37, “sturdily stands in for herself” in Camino, a survival-thriller set in the jungles of Colombia circa 1985. The Los Angeles Times reviews the film: “Bell plays…
KJ Apa Lands Archie Andrews Role in US
Eighteen-year-old New Zealand-born KJ Apa, best known for his Shortland Street role as Kane Jenkins, has been cast as Archie Andrews in US television network series Riverdale. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Riverdale had difficulty…
Re-Examining The Piano’s Kinky Music Lessons
“Films about mute piano players embroiled in erotic love triangles never did become a burgeoning genre. Perhaps that’s because it’s virtually impossible to imagine another equalling writer/director Jane Campion’s 1993 magnum opus: an extraordinarily…
Melanie Lynskey Acts the Only Way She Can: Honestly
Actor Melanie Lynskey, the “genial” New Zealand-born star of HBO’s comedy-drama series Togetherness, is profiled in the Los Angeles Times. Lynskey’s expressions are somehow familiar, a visage seen in her countless television and film roles…
Tammy Davis’ Hit a Berlinale Favourite
Tammy Davis’ hip-hop drama Born to Dance, a “hidden gem” at this year’s Berlinale, has become the most unlikely of box-office hits Down Under. Born to Dance brought in more than $1 million in theatres…
Jemaine Clement Recalls David Bowie Snub
“Dave Grohl is only the latest to have revealed his rejection by David Bowie.” The Guardian also includes New Zealand’s very own Flight of the Conchords in its list of “10 of Bowie’s very…
iZombie Star Rose McIver a Role Model for Fans
Rose McIver, the New Zealand actress who plays crime-solving zombie, Liv Moore, says the character has become an unlikely role model for many fans, which may explain why iZombie has been ratings gold for…
Finola Dwyer Wins Bafta
Irish emigrant saga Brooklyn, which was produced by New Zealander Finola Dwyer, was named best British picture on Sunday at the British Academy Film Awards. “The British awards, known as BAFTAs, are considered a portent…
New Zealand Movie at 2016 Berlin Film Festival
The New Zealand movie Mahana/The Patriarch is one of the ten movies at the 66th Berlin Film Festival The Guardian is most looking forward to. The Patriarch, set in the 1960s, was shot…
A Love Of All New Zealand Movies
“To the unaware, movie titles like Whale Rider and Once Were Warriors are well-made, entertaining yarns about Maoris. But to Charles Eggen, 78, they rank among his favorites — not just because they’re good…
Finola Dwyer Building on Success of Brooklyn
Celebrating six BAFTA nominations and three Oscar nominations, Wildgaze Films duo Wellington-born Finola Dwyer and Briton Amanda Posey look back at Brooklyn’s journey and ahead to their future slate and ambitions. Brooklyn was launched at…
David Farrier’s Doco Tickled a Hit with Critics
New investigative documentary, the “engrossing” Tickled, co-directed by New Zealanders David Farrier and Dylan Reeve, has received rave reviews from critics and punters after its premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Farrier and Dylan Reeve’s…
Thor director Taika Waititi an Indie Powerhouse
“As a director, got an impeccable ability to balance painful earnestness with biting humour,” Angela Watercutter writes for WIRED. “And as a comedy writer and actor, he produces jokes that land…
Hunt for the Wilderpeople is Perfectly Balanced
Taika Waititi’s film adaptation of Barry Crump’s Wild Pork and Watercress, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, which made its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, is a “deliciously good time at the movies,” according to…
Top of the Lake Season 2 to Start Filming This Spring
“It’s been almost three years since Top of the Lake first aired and it’s still hard to shake the series’ sense of creeping dread”, writes Jacob Stolworthy in an article on The Independent. Lead actress…
Sundance Welcomes Taika Waititi’s Latest
Taika Waititi’s new film Hunt for the Wilderpeople, a dramatisation of Barry Crump’s 1986 novel, Wild Pork and Watercress, has premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Boy director Waititi returns with the road comedy…
Heath Cozens Breaks Stereotypes with Doglegs
Disabled athletes fight the non-disabled in New Zealand director Heath Cozens’ award-winning documentary Doglegs which provides an outlet for five determined wrestlers to escape the prejudice they face in everyday life, the Guardian reports. It…
Lesley Vanderwalt’s Mad Max Work up for BAFTA
If the hair and makeup from the post-apocalyptic science-fiction film Mad Max: Fury Road looks out of this world, it very well might be, according to the Los Angeles Times. That’s because hair and…
Manu Bennett and Jed Brophy Take up Noalath
In a Shannara Chronicles “Behind the Scenes” MTV video, New Zealanders Manu Bennett, who plays the druid Allanon, and Jed Brophy, demon king Dagda Mor, reveal their thoughts about the made-up language entitled Noalath…
Jemaine Clement the Protagonist
New Zealand actor Jemaine Clement’s performance in the “not quite rom-com” People Places Things “is understated, often characterised by the type of deadpan wit familiar to fans of his breakout HBO series Flight of…
Brain-Eating Rose McIver Owns TV Role
New Zealander Rose McIver, star of iZombie, one of the Los Angeles Times’ best new television shows of 2015, is “incognito as a coroner’s assistant, find the space between Veronica Mars and Buffy the…
Peter Jackson-Backed Movie Museum Wins Approval
“Hobbits, Orcs, Ents and maybe even some Na’vi are getting their own museum in New Zealand’s capital city,” writes Nancy Tartaglione in an article for Deadline. The project – a combined movie museum…
Rachel Hunter’s Tour of Beauty
New Zealander Rachel Hunter, once one of the world’s most-photographed supermodels, is now on a quest to discover the secrets of lasting beauty, great health and extraordinary longevity in diverse cultures around the world,…
New Zealand a Majestic Set for Shannara Chronicles
MTV’s new fantasy series The Shannara Chronicles is set in the future but features elves and gnomes and promises plenty of old-fashioned adventure all filmed in the town of Kumeu, in New Zealand’s scenic…
The Shannara Chronicles
“MTV’s new fantasy series “The Shannara Chronicles” is set in the future but features elves and gnomes and promises plenty of old-fashioned adventure,” writes Nick Perry for The Republic. The show is based…
Marton Csokas Enters Into the Badlands
New Zealand-born actor Marton Csokas, 49, told reporters at the recent New York Comic-Con he is happy to star in the martial-arts drama Into the Badlands because it is unlike anything else on American…
Peter Jackson Ad-Libbed Shooting Hobbit
Oscar-winning director Peter Jackson, 54, admits he was “winging it” and “was making it up as I went along” for much of the Hobbit trilogy’s chaotic shoot. Jackson has revealed he began filming the blockbuster…
Zoë Bell on Fighting Her Way Through Hollywood
“To actually do an action film without Zoë Bell is foolhardy,” director Quentin Tarantino says, but according to Denver news site Westword, based on the current slate on the Waiheke Island-born stunt double turned actor’s…
New Zealand’s Post-Hobbit World
Even after the end of Peter Jackson’s ‘Lord of The Rings’ movies, the New Zealand film and TV business is thriving and “turning the land that once served as Middle-Earth into a host of…
Cliff Curtis on Returning to New Zealand to Produce
New Zealand actor Cliff Curtis says that returning to New Zealand to tell local stories keeps him sane. “It sort of grounds me and gives me a sense of purpose,” said Curtis. His next project alongside…
Dean O’Gorman Gets Kirk Douglas’ Seal of Approval
When Aucklander Dean O’Gorman, 38, was cast in the plum role of Kirk Douglas in Trumbo, the new biopic about blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, he decided to ask the legendary actor if he wouldn’t…
Finola Dwyer Tells Her Mother’s Story in Brooklyn
New Zealand-born, London-based producer Finola Dwyer has “impeccable taste,” according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Her latest collaboration with author Nick Hornby is Brooklyn, the film version of Colm Toibin’s 2009 novel. Dwyer has made…
Kitten Rugby World Cup
Kiwi comedy duo Jono and Ben have recreated the highlights of the New Zealand vs. France Rugby World Cup match in a video with a twist – their clip features kittens rather…
Del Toro’s Crimson Peak Inspired by Night in Haunted Kiwi Hotel
Guillermo Del Toro’s newest movie Crimson Peak reportedly is inspired by nights he spent in haunted hotels – one of them a New Zealand hotel, where he stayed while scouting locations for The Hobbit films. When he…
Obviously Deathgasm Is a Family Film
“Making his feature directing debut after several years on the FX teams of such films as The Avengers and The Hobbit, New Zealander Jason Lei Howden delivers a pic that will play very well…
Jane Campion One of Cinema’s Most Powerful Women
“From Golden Age trailblazers to modern-day ass-kickers,” the Telegraph introduces its readers to Hollywood’s 34 “most influential, inventive and important women,” including our very own Jane Campion. A director, writer and producer, Campion is best…
Splatstick Done the Ash Vs. Evil Dead Way
Roger Murray, on the phone to the Los Angeles Times from the Auckland set of Ash vs. Evil Dead, has one simple way to describe his job as the show’s prosthetics designer and props…
Marlon Williams Smoulders in TV Debut
With 24-year-old New Zealand singer Marlon Williams making his Australian television debut – in ABC’s seductive new miniseries, The Beautiful Lie – both his vocal ability and screen charisma should convince viewers of this…
New Zealand is the King of Comedy Horror
Kiwis “certainly seem to have a killer knack for comedy horror – gleefully creating tongue-in-cheek shockers that have the ability to make us both giggle and scream”, writes Mark Butler for WOW. Below…
Meet the New Moana Princess
14-year old Hawaiian Auli’i Cravalho has been selected to voice the lead in Disney’s new princess movie Moana. “From baby time to now, I wanted to be a Disney princess and then I wanted to…
Banshee’ Releases Final Season Trailer
The trailer for the fourth and final season of small-town crime drama Banshee has been released. January 29 has been set as the show’s premiere date. New Zealand actor Antony Starr is starring as Lucas…
‘The Shannara Chronicles’ New Trailer Released
A new trailer for fantasy series The Shannara Chronicles, which will debut on January 5, has been released at New York’s Comic Con. The show has been filmed in New Zealand. The series produced by…
Surprise Ash Vs. Evil Dead Premiere
The audience at the Ash Vs. Evil Dead panel at New York’s Comic Con was surprised with a surprise premiere of the entire first episode, which according to Eric Goldman in an article on…
Joe Naufahu to Star in ‘Game Of Thrones’
Joe Naufahu has been cast to star on the sixth season of HBO’s Game Of Thrones. Details on which character the Kiwi will be playing have not yet been released. “He could be the next…
With a Little Help from Sam Neill’s Friends
Hollywood star Sam Neill may originally hail from Northern Ireland, but he has just confessed to having a little difficulty mastering an Ulster accent for television drama series Peaky Blinders – despite help from…
Jane Campion Casts Gaze over Female-Directed Films
Jane Campion contributes to a Sight & Sound magazine special issue, which aims “to write women back into film history by championing 100 female-directed hidden gems that have been forgotten or unfairly overlooked.” “Just because…
American Cinematheque to Honour Cliff Curtis
New Zealander Cliff Curtis, 47, who portrayed speed chess genius Genesis Potini in The Dark Horse, will be honoured by the American Cinematheque at a ceremony on 11 October at the Aero Theatre in…
