ScreenTalk: Robyn Malcolm

Robyn Malcolm has played a diverse range of gritty characters, including her most recent award-winning TV role as Cheryl West in Outrageous Fortune. In this ScreenTalk interview Malcolm talks about her beginnings ‘in the chorus’ at school, finding her 'group' at university and discovering drama school.

“It’s been just a straight path since then, I’ve never questioned it."

Malcolm has become one of our most loved performers, and has been voted New Zealand’s sexiest woman two years in a row.

Her TV credits include Shortland Street, the tele-feature Clare, Mercy Peak, Serial Killers, and Shark in the Park. Malcolm’s film acting credits include Perfect Strangers, Absent Without Leave, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, and The Lovely Bones.

As well as acting roles, Malcolm has been a panellist on How’s Life?, starred in an episode of Intrepid Journeys, and presented the documentary Our Lost War: Passchendaele – a personal story about the World War I battle in which her great uncle died.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Malcolm discusses:

• Getting the acting bug in school

• How she thought Shortland Street would be her only TV role

• The challenging experience of playing a cervical cancer survivor in the tele-feature Clare

• How playing an ex-porn star turned teacher, and kissing Craig Parker could be included in her list of career lows and highs

• The emotional intensity of the documentary Our Lost War: Passchendaele

• How proud she is that TV3 hit Outrageous Fortune has changed the way we see ourselves on television

• And how a prediction that her career would consist of acting as mothers and whores has come true

NZ On Screen:  Interview, Camera & Editing – Andrew Whiteside