Irene Wood has played Katherine Mansfield, a nymphomaniac pensioner, and a gin-toting grandma to a Go Girl. Her screen career first got busy in the early days of NZ TV, as an actor, TV presenter, and musical performer.

Years later she would snare what is probably her best-known role: as a hard-drinking grandma over five seasons of hit show Go Girls. Wood has also appeared on Shortland Street and in movies Rest for the Wicked and The Shirt.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Wood talks about:

• Her no-nonsense attitude to acting — and the only two rules that matter in the game
• “Prancing around the stage” and singing-off key, in her first performing role
• Busy days of television in the 60s
• The advantages of being forced to perform live
• Wearing Elizabeth McRae’s clothes on Shortland Street
• Playing mother to a “hopeless drug addict son” in dark-edged movie The Shirt
• Her role as Nan McMann, one of a quartet of solo mothers on Go Girls
• Revelling in the chance to make a fool of herself on the show
• Playing a sex-obsessed pensioner alongside Ilona Rodgers, in film Rest for the Wicked
• Why there are less roles in NZ for actors of a certain vintage
• Her thoughts on portrayals of elderly characters on screen

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

NZ On Screen: Interview and editing - Ian Pryor. Camera - Jess Charlton