Champion Centre Column
IZZY ASHURST STARS AS LEAD ACTOR IN NZ SHORT FILM The Champion Centre in Christchurch has helped many children with intellectual disabilities start a life full of potential and opportunities. Izzy Ashurst is one of the graduates who is already making her mark, writes Andrea Heffernan. Izzy Ashurst, nearly aged 13 and one of our Centre graduates, has the leading role in a short film that has been written and directed by her mum, Gillian Ashurst. 'The Meek' is an apocalyptic drama in which humanity is shown to be on the brink of extinction due to a virus. The film explores the journey of its lead character, who happens to be a young girl with Down syndrome. Ironically, the film was written and shot prior to the current worldwide crisis. Izzy’s mum, Gillian Ashurst, has been an integral part of the New Zealand film industry since the late 1990s and has a feature film called 'Snakeskin', four short films (including 'The Meek') and at least four documentaries under her belt. She is the recipient of a number of film and television awards and her projects have received invitations from a plethora of film festivals across the globe. Due to Gillian’s work, Izzy has grown up around cameras and film sets, so this kind of visual story telling has always been quite normal for her, and she’s always had a love of performing. “Having Izzy in my life inspired me to write the script for 'The Meek', and I basically wrote it with
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her in mind from the start. I knew what she’s capable of, and of course how to get the best performances from her,” says Gillian. “One of the most important qualities that Izzy brought to the set was her sense of openness and honesty. Izzy responded absolutely sincerely to whatever was going on in the scene, and whatever the other actor was bringing to her.” ‘We didn’t rehearse too much with her, we just let her be herself within the context of each scene, and that worked really well. “The adult actors sculptured their performances around her in order to help guide her toward the performance we needed. But this also meant that sometimes her reactions were unexpected, and often that was quite magical,” says Gillian. Gillian says Izzy had a great time. “Like all kids, she likes attention and she certainly got a lot of that on set, with makeup and wardrobe fussing over her. But she did have to work hard and it was tiring at times.” The main shoot was six half-days spread over eight weeks. Breaking up the film shoots definitely made it easier on Izzy, and also suited the time progression of the film across changing seasons. However, Gillian says it wasn’t always easy working with Izzy (as with any pre-teenager). “The honesty that makes her performances so good can also be problematic. She doesn’t really care that there’s a schedule or how many people are standing around waiting to finish the day. If she doesn’t feel like doing something in a particular moment, she’ll let you know!” They had a few things in place to help with this and support Izzy. Actress Tandi Wright, who plays Izzy’s Mum in the film, stayed on beyond