Lisa Harrow left New Zealand in the 1960s to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in England – it was this move that cemented her love of theatre and later enabled her to build an international screen career.

She has visited New Zealand periodically and starred in the films Other Halves and Shaker Run. Nowadays Harrow lives in the US and is involved in environmental campaigning. Her most recent Kiwi project has been starring as the grandmother in TV2’s Step Dave.

In this ScreenTalk, Harrow talks about:

• Playing the BBC’s biggest role for a woman in Nancy Astor
• How the lead in Other Halves enabled her to come back to New Zealand
• Doing all sorts of dangerous stunts in the film Shaker Run
• Hating working with the Hollywood actor Cliff Robertson
• Enjoying working on the Australian film The Last Days of Chez Nous
• Working on the ‘ludicrous’ film The Final Conflict with Sam Neill
• Filming The Man from a Far Country under the threat of a Russian invasion
• Loving being the grandmother in Step Dave
• Her dream that a director will cast her as a feisty old woman in a New Zealand film

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

NZ On Screen: Camera and Editing – Andrew Whiteside