Award-winning actor Sarah Peirse is best known for her portrayals of two very different mothers — the ill-fated Honorah Reiper in Heavenly Creatures, and the disaffected sophisticate in Rain.

Peirse’s first film was the 80s short Queen Street, followed by tele-feature A Woman of Good Character. More recently, she has appeared in tele-movies Bliss: The Beginning of Katherine Mansfield and Aftershock.

In this ScreenTalk, Peirse talks about:

• Having an intense acting journey in A Woman of Good Character
• Playing the gloriously named Vivienne Wallop in Sylvia
• Being heavily pregnant on the set of The Navigator
• Her experience of working with director Vincent Ward
• Being told not to watch Peter Jackson’s previous films prior to working with him on Heavenly Creatures
• Dreaming about the character she played in the film
• Finding the story in the feature film Rain compelling
• Perspectives on her character’s grief and self-destruction
• Playing a 'constrained and compromised' mother in Bliss: The Beginning of Katherine Mansfield
• Not knowing whether or not her work on the Hobbit films will make the final cut
• Feeling blessed to have been able to do roles integral to many films

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

NZ On Screen: Camera and Editing – Andrew Whiteside