Neill Rea is an actor and casting director who began his screen career with a guest role in the 100th episode of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. He went on to appear in other TV shows including Duggan, Mercy Peak, The Strip and Ivanhoe show Dark Knight.

Having created a stir by playing a rapist in nightly soap Shortland Street, he is now back on screens as good guy detective Mike Shepherd in Prime TV series The Brokenwood Mysteries.

In this ScreenTalk, Rea talks about:

• Being thrown around on an episode of Hercules
• Learning from acting masters John Bach and Nathaniel Lees on detective series Duggan
• The challenges of shooting on 16mm film for Scarfies
• Odd experiences with insects, while shooting horror movie The Irrefutable Truth About Demons
• Struggling to cope with the plot-based style of Shortland Street
• Toning it down while playing a villain on the show, opposite Rebecca Hobbs
• How working on Go Girls helped him when he re-cast series five of the show
• Being surprised at winning the lead in The Brokenwood Mysteries
• Worrying initially that he was no good in the role
• How less is more when playing Detective Inspector Mike Shepherd

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

NZ On Screen:Camera and Editing – Andrew Whiteside