News of New Zealanders via Global Media

Duo Wins Film Rights to Bestselling Capital

Duo Wins Film Rights to Bestselling Capital

New Zealanders Matthew Metcalfe and Justin Pemberton have acquired the film rights to French economist Thomas Piketty’s 2013 global bestseller Capital in the Twenty-First Century. In Cannes, the pair unveiled their plans for the…

Martin Henderson Talks on Grey’s Anatomy Role

Martin Henderson Talks on Grey’s Anatomy Role

New Zealand actor Martin Henderson, 41, who plays Dr Nathan Riggs in the long-running popular medical drama Grey’s Anatomy, is profiled in Singapore’s Straits Times. The handsome neurosurgeon Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey) had been dubbed…

Sam Neill Says NZ Cinema like Nothing Else on Earth

Sam Neill Says NZ Cinema like Nothing Else on Earth

In a career of almost unparalleled versatility, Sam Neill’s latest role in Taika Waititi’s Hunt for the Wilderpeople finds him returning to his roots. Elle Hunt tracks the New Zealander down in Sydney for…

Peter Jackson Pro Screening Room First-Run Rental

Peter Jackson Pro Screening Room First-Run Rental

One director in favour of Napster co-founder Sean Parker’s potential industry-disrupting startup – to sell first-run movies to home viewers at US$50 a pop – is Peter Jackson, the Academy Award-winning director behind The…

Russell Crowe to Star in The Mummy Remake

Russell Crowe to Star in The Mummy Remake

“Russell Crowe has confirmed he will star in “The Mummy” reboot as Dr. Henry Jekyll alongside Tom Cruise,” as reported in KPUG 1170. The movie will be quite different from the Brendan Fraser-fronted…

Banshee Star Antony Starr Reflects on Cult Series

Banshee Star Antony Starr Reflects on Cult Series

Fans of Cinemax’s highest rated original show Banshee are on the edge of their collective seats to see just where the show’s central figure – played with a combination of extreme grit and deep-rooted…

Taika Waititi Proves to Be Box-Office Gold in NZ

Taika Waititi Proves to Be Box-Office Gold in NZ

“Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi rules the box office in his homeland of New Zealand,” writes Pip Bulbeck for The Hollywood Reporter. Two of his films are now the top New Zealand films at…

Notes to Eternity – Impressive and Affecting

Notes to Eternity – Impressive and Affecting

A  meditation on the Israel-Palestine conflict, the documentary feature film notes to eternity, directed and produced by New Zealander Sarah Cordery, centers on the lives and ideas of three Jewish Americans: world renowned public…

Game of Thrones Star Joseph Naufahu Never Loses

Game of Thrones Star Joseph Naufahu Never Loses

Game of Thrones star, New Zealand-born Joseph Naufahu, 38, talks with People magazine about the problems of speaking Dothraki, and about fighting in his underwear. Naufahu, who made his debut as Khal Moro in the…

Zoë Bell Honoured at Artemis Women In Action Film Festival

Zoë Bell Honoured at Artemis Women In Action Film Festival

Auckland-born actress and stuntwoman Zoë Bell has been honoured as Stunt Icon at the Artemis Women In Action Film Festival in Beverly Hills, California. She received the award as a woman whose “name has become…

Kiwi Film to Premiere at Sci-Fi London Film Festival

Kiwi Film to Premiere at Sci-Fi London Film Festival

New Zealand feature film This Giant Papier Mache Boulder Is Actually Really Heavy (short Boulder) will premiere at the Sci-Fi London Film Festival in May. The film previously had a fantastic reception at the…

Getting into Character with Cliff Curtis

Getting into Character with Cliff Curtis

Cliff Curtis wasn’t the first choice to play Genesis Potini, admits Dark Horse director James Napier Robertson, who was in Washington recently to promote the film to US audiences. Robertson says he never even considered…

Actor Manu Bennett Returns to TV Roots

Actor Manu Bennett Returns to TV Roots

Rotorua-born film and television star Manu Bennett, 46, one of the big drawcards at the recent 2016 Supanova Pop Culture Expo, cut his teeth as an actor on the Gold Coast back in 1993 as…

Shanghai to Host Kiwi Film Festival

Shanghai to Host Kiwi Film Festival

The 2016 New Zealand Film Festival will be hosted in Shanghai from April 21 to 30.  7 recent productions, which cover a wide range of genre and styles including biopic, romantic comedy and suspense,…

The Anatomy of Martin Henderson

The Anatomy of Martin Henderson

New Zealand actor Martin Henderson spoke to DaMan about joining the cast of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ and staying true to his roots amid the glitz and glam of showbiz. When asked how he was…

‘The Guinea Pig Club’ Film on Sir Archibald McIndoe in the Works

‘The Guinea Pig Club’ Film on Sir Archibald McIndoe in the Works

‘The Guinea Pig Club’ about Sir Archibald McIndoe, the Kiwi plastic surgeon who gave horribly disfigured WWII pilots a reason to live, is just months away from getting the green light. Roger Donaldson, who directed The World’s…

The Dark Horse Opens to Acclaim in US

The Dark Horse Opens to Acclaim in US

James Napier Robertson’s film The Dark Horse, starring the “magnetic” Cliff Curtis, has opened in the United States to glowing reviews from critics. Robert Abele, writing for the Los Angeles Times, said: “star Curtis is…

Game of Thrones Star Joins Top of the Lake

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,…

Martin Henderson Not Taking Fame Too Seriously

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

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”

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

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’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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’ 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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…