Tandi Wright spent some of her childhood in the dressing room at Avalon TV Studios – waiting for her actor parents to finish work on Close to Home. But rather than encouraging her to follow suit, Wright insists they were always “realistic about how nearly impossible it is to make a career out of acting”. She agrees – but seems to have pulled off the “impossible” anyway.

Wright has been acting for television since the age of six, playing lead roles in some of New Zealand’s top productions including Shortland Street, Willy Nilly, Being Eve, Serial Killers, Outrageous Fortune, This Is Not My Life and Nothing Trivial. Her film credits include Not Only But Always, Black Sheep, and Out of the Blue.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Wright reveals:

• How she learnt to cope with the disappointment of “hitting the cutting room floor” from a very early age
• How she felt about her time at Shortland Street and her reasons for leaving the soap
• Her experiences on the set of Street Legal
• The joys of working with Mark Hadlow and Sean Duffy on Willy Nilly
• An insight into the characterisations on TV series Serial Killers
• What it was like to join the cast of Outrageous Fortune in series six
• Her feelings on playing Julie Ann Bryson and the grueling subject matter in the feature film Out of the Blue, based on the Aramoana shootings
• Her impressions of the production and her character in TV series This Is Not My Life
• The benefits of an ensemble cast in Nothing Trivial

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

NZ On Screen: Interview, Camera & Editing – James Coleman