Actor Blair Strang shot to fame in New Zealand playing the likeable ambulance driver Rangi in Shortland Street. After six years, he quit the show and returned to law school. Since then, his acting career has been resurrected playing a range of characters.

He has appeared in shows such as Go Girls, Spin Doctors, Doves of War, and Orange Roughies. He now plays the un-PC Brian on the hit show Nothing Trivial.

In this ScreenTalk, Strang talks about:

• Getting a role on The Billy T James Show through his friend Ilona Rodgers
• Noticing the shyness of the show’s star when not performing
• Being told off by his mother after getting a role on Shortland Street
• How the role of Rangi on the soap changed over time
• Why changes to the show led him to quit after six years
• Feeling he’d done a really bad acting job on Spin Doctors
• Why having a hangover helped him get a role on Doves of War
• Playing with guns and getting soaked in a boat in Orange Roughies
• How playing Brian on Nothing Trivial has been his favourite role to date

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

NZOnScreen: Camera and Editing – Andrew Whiteside