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Left — Sophie Henderson
play a variety of eccentric characters. I am about to start rehearsals with the company for a play called Belleville, which is a psychological thriller directed by Oliver Driver and which also stars Matt Whelan. I love being on stage, that’s my favourite thing in the world. Watching my film with its first audience at the New Zealand International Film Festival was a professional highlight as a writer. We had no idea how it would be received and you could feel people in the cinema connect to the story and the characters. They laughed in all the right places — way more than I thought they would. And there was absolute silence and a bit of sniffing in the sad bits. They got it. Having strangers tell you that they loved your film is pretty overwhelming and humbling. V: Tell us a little about your Fantail experience. S: Fantail is about a girl, Tania, who has grown up thinking she’s Maori. She works the graveyard shift in a petrol station, saving money so that her and her brother can go to Surfers Paradise and find their dad. She is tough and bossy and vulnerable all at once and is in denial about who she is. Tania is trying to work out where she belongs.
VERVE INTERVIEWS
Sophie Henderson The movie, Fantail is the passion project of director Curtis Vowell, producer Sarah Cook and writer/actress Sophie Henderson. Set almost entirely in a petrol station, Fantail, shot on location in South Auckland, premiered at last year’s International Film Festival and is showing in cinemas this June. The New Zealand Herald said that Fantail is “one of the freshest New Zealand films to come along in years,” and the Dominion Post reporter reckoned that “Fantail stole my heart.” Sounds like a movie not to be missed. Verve interviews the star of the show, Sophie Henderson. Verve: Did you always want to write and star in a film? Sophie: I always wanted to be an actor, but I accidentally became a writer. It was a happy accident. I got into writing through devising theatre — coming up with a play from scratch with a group of actors and a director. Acting lead me to figuring out I could write. And yes, starring in a film is
always the dream. It’s every actors dream (as long as the film is good). V: What inspires you most — writing or acting? S: Acting will always be my first love, but there is no clear career pathway for actors. You can put yourself in the right place — you can go to Hollywood but there are no guarantees, you can’t just work really hard at it and be successful, there is some luck involved. You are waiting for the right part to come along for you and so it’s quite a passive existence. Where as no one is stopping you from writing, there are hundreds of opportunities for screenwriters and you can write from anywhere in the world. V: Tell us about the highlights of both your writing and acting career? S: I am most proud of the work I have done with Silo Theatre. I have been lucky enough to work with directors at the top of their game on both classic and contemporary, internationally acclaimed works and have had the opportunity to
Making Fantail was the best thing I’ve ever done. I feel very lucky to have had the chance to make a film and to make this film. I have never written for screen before so learning how to do this was a huge challenge. I read a bunch of screenwriting books and screenplays and asked everyone I knew in the film world to read my script. As an actor, shooting a film in 20 days was very very difficult. It was fast and furious filmmaking. There was no time to think too much about your performance, it had to be instinctual. I think the film asks questions rather than gives a message. I’m really interested in whether maori culture belongs to all New Zealanders and how Maori you have to be to claim that culture. There are a lot of white Maori and brown Pakeha in New Zealand and I think the film explores the idea of this. The title of the film is inspired by a fantail being bad luck in Maori culture, some people believe that if a fantail flies into your house it means a son or a neighbour dies. In the Maori legend about Maui and the goddess of death, Hine-nui-te-põ, a cheeky little fantail ruins everything. Tania’s brother is called Pi, or Piwakawaka which means fantail in Te Reo.