Dawson’s Return

Australian media personality and regular on The Bert Newton Show, NZer Charlotte Dawson packs up her Louis Vuitton trunks to return home to her native country. “There are just…

Love in a cold climate

Say it with flowers: NZ-born floral designer Nina Sherson’s fashionable West End floral boutique, Earthworks, features in a BBC Valentine’s Day special. As well Sherson tops the list…

The tyranny of distance

…didn’t stop Russell Crowe…talking at the Berlin Film Festival about his edge: “Growing up in New Zealand or Australia you look outwards, fully aware you’re living in the last…

From NZ with Love

“Spunky New Zealander” Mary Hobbs, editor of NZ Outside, and her mountain guide husband Charlie, use their own money to put together a book from their fellow countrymen…

Are You Looking at Us?

PJ helmed, NZ-made Lord of the Rings…Russell Crowe in Beautiful Mind…Andrew Adamson co-directed Shrek. The Oscars go antipodean as the edge gives Hollywood a prod in tandem with a…

Oscar Double?

Russell Crowe earns his third consecutive Best Actor Oscar nomination for his depiction of Nobel Prize winner John Forbes Nash Jr in A Beautiful Mind. If he were to win,…

Rings Cleans Up Awards

Lord of the Rings wins Best Film, Best Debut, and Best Actor at the Empire Awards 2001. “It was the greatest experience of our professional lives, going to New Zealand…

Speaking in tongues

Applauded young Aotearoa actress Madeleine Sami, dodges questions about her involvement with Rings star Elijah Woods (“we kind of hung out and went to the movies a bit”), a…

Xena tackles Vagina Monlogues

Warrior Princess Lucy Lawless learns “new respect for the vagina, for the power and sacredness of it”, as she stars alongside Madeline Sami and Danielle Cormack in Auckland Theatre…

Bollywood or bust

Lush locations, talent and technology make NZ an ideal shooting location for Bollywood. Its almost monsoon season down under with the production schedules over-flowing, “the total number of song…

Middle Earth homestay

“I just want to stay in NZ making my stuff.” PJ interviewed by PBS’s Charlie Rose. Listen to the interview here for a fascinating conversation as Peter Jackson…

East to the Edge

A book exploring the distinctly Japanese art of Kabuki has been “beautifully translated into English” by New Zealander Kirsten McIvor. Kabuki Today throws open the door to the mysterious…

Art for Masses

LATimes cover story on art for the people in Chinatown, LA, features NZ artists and curators, including an exhibition at the Lord Mori Gallery, curated by Tessa Laird…

Crowe: Edgy Actor

Front-running for repeat Oscar victory Crowe would rather have a beer according to this excellent Independent profile that plays on Rus’s ANZAC roots, “Like the classic guy from Down…

Dead chuffed

The A-list from the cinematic, corporate and consulate worlds turned out for a deliciously irreverent Sam Neil tribute honouring his 25 years in film and his contribution to New…

Strutting in their genes

New Zealand’s “young kid band with famous fathers”, otherwise known as Betchadupa, tours Australia for the Big Day Out series. Frontman Liam Finn bears the iconic surname of…

Gilding the Director

Peter Jackson is nominated for the Best Director award as judged by the Directors Guild Association. Jackson, however, doesn’t seem very interested in taking home any coveted gold trophies:…

A Beautiful Mind

Wellington-born Russell Crowe, who last year won an Oscar for his lead role in Gladiator, pulls off the second biggest win of his career – a Golden Globe for…

“All the world’s a stage”

24-year-old Aucklander, Miles Lattimer-Gregory, hits the big time in London’s West End, with the company he founded, the British Touring Shakespeare Company opening its season of Hamlet and the…

“Fair-dinkum” Kiwi tops the pops

NZ-born musician Daniel Bedingfield, 21, tops the UK pop charts with Gotta Get Thru This – recorded on rudimentary equipment and a computer in his south London bedroom. “The…

The Crowe Road to Oscar Success?

Russell Crowe is named Actor of the Year by the Broadcast Film Critics Association for his lead role in A Beautiful Mind. Crowe has won the award for the…

“Cook Me Some Eggs James”

NZ-born Lee Tamahori, is charged with the license to uphold pop-cultural iconography, as he undertakes the directorship of the 20th James Bond installment, taking over from another Kiwi Martin Campbell. “To…

Truly, madly, deeply explicit

New Zealand actor Kerry Fox visits Sydney to promote her controversial new film, Intimacy and offers this boyfriend-friendly pronouncement on her method: “Its not sex. It’s not lovemaking. It’s…

Front line truck stop

War correspondent Margaret Moth heads to another of the world’s trouble spots, this time Kabul, Afghanistan. Along the way, while searching for a truck waylaid picking them up at Bagram…

Madcap Pamela bestselling biographer

New Zealand-born Pamela Stephenson, practicing psychotherapist and ex-comedian (part of the anarchic foursome who made the seminal and career launching comedy Not the Nine o’clock News – along…

Young stars

Australian Ex-Monty Python director, Maurice Murphy, stars students from Toi Whakaari New Zealand drama school in his latest feature film, Zenolith.

Moment in time

Photographic heavyweight Regan Cameron engages his lens in some model-watching to “express the emotion” behind the new range from high-end watch-maker Patek Philippe.

Movie of the year

“The most heartbreaking thing about faithful movie-going is that awe, beauty and excitement, three of the things we go to the movies for, are the very things we’re cheated…

Top Honours and Front-runner in Oscar-quest

The Lord of the Rings wins Best Picture, Best Digital Effects, and Best Production Design at the American Film Institute Awards. Closer to home, Peter Jackson is named Companion…

Weldon CBE

New Zealand-raised London-based writer Fay Weldon is now Fay Weldon, CBE. “One feels very flattered,” says Weldon, honoured for her charitable work as well as her writing.

Lord of the Screen

“The Lord of the Rings is easily the best film of the year” – The Times. “Peter Jackson’s adaptation of the fantasy classic is as near to perfection…

Fellowship of the Rings?

Our neighbours across the Tasman have always thought of themselves as Big Brother, now they want to share toys: “anything which is good for Australia is good for New…

Floored by the Rings

“The real star of The Lord of the Rings is New Zealand. The scenery, ranging from snowbound mountain passes to rolling grasslands, has a beauty of jaw-dropping quality and…

Where Can Jackson Go From Here?

If anyone wants Citizen Kane remade, here is the man “Potter was made by a committee masquerading as a director. Rings is made by a genius masquerading as a…

Oscar front-runner

“Oscar is no great fan of fantasy. But the Lord of the Rings, with such Oscar heavyweights as Ian McKellen and Ian Holm, may carry enough high-class baggage to…

Trans-urbanism: getting Wigley with it

Colombia University Professor of Architecture, NZer Mark Wigley bemoans the divide between theory and practice at a Rotterdam symposium to debate the future of the city. Sharing the hustings…

Gladiator to Genius

Russell Crowe is tipped for repeat Oscar honours following his fantastic performance as mathematical genius John Forbes Nash Jr in Ron Howard’s A Beautiful Mind.

The Land of the Rings

“The first thing I thought when Peter showed me the pictures of the locations in New Zealand was: this is Middle-earth,” says Elijah Woods. “I mean, it has every…

Shakespeare Goes Maori

The Merchant of Venice is turned into the first Maori-language film of a Shakespeare play. “Shakespeare’s use of language is not dissimilar to the ancient poetic, lyrical and metaphorical…

Wheels of steel

Aotearoa’s premier hip-hop DJ P-Money aka Pete Wadhams wins 3rd place in the DMC World Championships at London’s Apollo Theatre. “When he dropped his Dr Dre juggle played at…

Suburban Nirvana?

After striving from Yamoussoukra to Tunis to turn trouble-spots to hot-spots aspirational living guide Wallpaper magazine strolls down the “1930s model of modern living” – Savage Crescent, Palmerston North. Named…

Internet Oscars

Wellington web firm Click Suite scoops the internet equivalent of an Oscar at the European Multimedia Awards. The company won the business training award for its ‘Find the…

Feast of epiphanies

The praise has not ceased for No.2, New Zealand playwright Toa Fraser’s play, currently touring the world. “The play has been a triumph wherever it has shown, jumping cultural…

Finn’s food for the gods

Tim Finn takes matters into his own hands with his sixth solo album, “Feeding the Gods. “I’m realising how much of a classicist I am,” he says. “For a…

Paquin comes of age

Anna Paquin has blossomed from child prodigy to multi-talented star. She is receiving rave reviews for her role in the Broadway play ‘The Glory of the Living’, directed by…

Tattoo Culture

Renowned photographer Chris Rainier travels to New Zealand for his latest project on the culture of tattooing and scarification. Rainer features Maori tattoo art in his latest National…

More than Mansfield in Bloomsbury Group

Liz Calder, the NZedged head of Bloomsbury publishing (publishers of such literary luminaries as Michael Ondaatje, Will Self and John Irving), talks to The Guardian about the touted blockbuster…

Jackson Wizard Director

Kiwi film guru Peter Jackson is in Empire Magazine’s poll of the top 50 directors.

East side story

The famously diffuse art scene in LA seems to have finally found a centre, with galleries and artists increasingly coalescing around the east-side regions of Highland Park and Mount…

Photography Master

American Photo Magazine lists New Zealander Regan Cameron as one of ten “photographic masters” throughout the world alongside such legends of the lens as Irving Penn and Annie Leibovitz….

Upside down-under architect

Paris-based Brendan MacFarlane and partner Dominique Jakob talk concept with Interview magazine. “At Georges (the applauded restaurant atop the Pompidou Center), we deformed the floor”, says MacFarlane. “Here ……

Her Majesty

A preteen girl’s obsessive quest to cross paths with young Queen Elizabeth during latter’s 1953 New Zealand tour provides the charming focus for Her Majesty, L.A based director Mark…

PDF Copy

Ceci n’est pas le hype New Zealander Jennifer Flay, owner of one of Paris’s “edgiest contemporary art establishments” – Galerie Jennifer Flay – talks to Interview magazine’s October French flair…

Author graced with further award

Author Patricia Grace is honoured with the 21 Kiriyama Pacific Rim book prize for her novel Dogside Stories. The award was established to promote cross-cultural understanding.

More Margaret Mahy Magic

The multi-award-winning author, who was first published and praised in the United States over 30 years ago, has had her books translated into 15 languages. She has won literary…

X – Woman

Anna Paquin is playing another complex and haunted character – but this time on the New York stage. “I don’t think it’s anything in my own life,” she says….