Tandi Wright

Although she began acting at primary school, Tandi Wright didn't feel confident about calling herself an actor until she turned 30. Since joining Shortland Street in 1995, Wright has had a prolific and diverse acting career.

Tandi (short for Tandiwe) Wright was born in Zambia, and lived there for two years. Her father, journalist Vernon Wright, was training Zambian reporters after the country gained independence. Later she found herself in a dressing room back in Lower Hutt, while her mother Dinah Priestley finished acting her scenes in 1970s soap Close to Home.

At age six, Wright played one of George Grey's grandchildren in Kiwi TV epic The Governor, only for the role to disappear in the editing room. As a teen, she had a small role in 1984 telemovie Iris (not to be confused with the Judi Dench film about another writer named Iris).

While studying theatre, film and history at Victoria University in the early 1990s, Wright began to come round to the idea that acting might be for her. Acting was "such a risky thing financially", that it had taken a while before she felt confident that she could own the acting mantle. 

Later, while studying at acting school Toi Whakaari, she was invited to join Shortland Street (she'd already acted on this 1989 teen show: see third clip). Wright chose to finish her studies before joining the soap in 1995, to play straight-laced nurse Caroline Buxton. After telling the producers it was time to go, she was given an exciting final season in which her character jilted someone at the altar, got pregnant, and had the show's first sustained lesbian relationship, before riding off into the sunset with bad boy Greg (Tim Balme). 

Having done more than four years on Shortland Street, Wright took some time out before joining the cast of "funny and smart" teenage drama series Being Eve. Playing Alannah Lush, Eve's "warm-hearted but really rather dizzy" stepmother, Wright let loose in 10 centimetre heels and peroxide blonde hair. Eve was followed by roles on two short-lived programmes — Australian backpacker drama Crash Palace and quirky soap send-up Atlantis High — before she struck gold in hit Sunday night comedy Willy Nilly. Wright loves making comedy, "because you always end up laughing all day at work".

Wright played the "quite daft, but lovely" Joy, an undertaker's assistant who moves in with two 40-something brothers. "Working with Mark Hadlow and Sean Duffy was amazing because they are such good comedians", says Wright in this ScreenTalk interview. "Sean Duffy is the driest, funniest guy in the world, and Mark Hadlow is the best physical comedian I've ever seen ... I learnt so much from them."

For a number of months Wright found herself flying from Willy Nilly's Wellington set to Auckland each weekend, to spend her Sundays chasing criminals in the fourth season of Street Legal. She played "little toughie" detective Angela Watson. She also appeared in another long-running drama, Mercy Peak.

Comedy Serial Killers (2004) reunited Wright with many of her Shortland Street co-stars. Written by Shortland scribe James Griffin, the show (which can be watched in full here) goes behind the scenes on a hospital soap opera. Wright was nominated for an NZ Screen Award for her portrayal of a passive-aggressive producer, who is constantly at war with her writing team.

In the same period Wright suffered various indignities on politically incorrect comedy Seven Periods with Mr Gormsby. She played a "dippy", kind-hearted teacher who is romanced by egotistical school counsellor Steve Mudgeway. Next she found herself wandering through the bush in search of her children for period drama The Lost Children, was catapulted into the future for Margaret Mahy fantasy Maddigan's Quest, then dealt with the troubled present on political thriller Doves of War (2006).

In Peter Cooke biopic Not Only But Always she cameoed as Sound of Music star Julie Andrews. Wright also cameoed on season six of Outrageous Fortune. Her big screen work ranges from the mad scientist in hit horror comedy Black Sheep (2006) to playing mother to the main character in both family movie Kiwi Flyer and 2019 musical Daffodils.

In 2005 Wright faced the "extraordinary challenge" of playing a mother caught up in the horrors of the Aramoana killings in Out of the Blue. Wright was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in a Film at the 2008 NZ Film and TV Awards. Wright described the role as "the most full on experience I think I have ever had in making anything.... the deepest and darkest and wildest I've been."

Wright reunited with Out of the Blue director Robert Sarkies and Street Legal's Charles Mesure for offbeat television drama This is Not My Life (2010.) "It felt like we were making something really ambitious and something really unique," Wright told TV Week. She was nominated for an Aotearoa Film and TV for playing feisty but loving housewife Callie Ross, who discovers one day that her husband (Mesure) doesn't recognise her or their children. "He is everything to her and she would do anything to please him and to protect her family," says Wright of the role. "She's quite a tiger in that respect."

In 2011 Wright joined the first of three seasons of hit series Nothing Trivial, which centred on the lives and loves of a five-strong pub quiz team. As Catherine, Wright enjoyed playing a character who "doesn't need other people's approval", something she feels is rare for female characters on screen.

Since 2013 Wright has appeared in a number of international productions, including acclaimed stranded on a desert island series The Wilds, Australian-shot movie Love and Monsters (as mother to the hero), and Vancouver-shot series The Returned. In 2020 she joined the cast of Canadian-Kiwi murder mystery The Sounds. She also cameoed in Trans-Tasman hit 800 Words, as the late wife of Erik Thomson's character.

Wright created 2020 web series Third Term with her husband, scriptwriter Michael Beran. Wright stars as a pregnant prime minister. She swears Beran came up with the idea before Jacinda Ardern had a baby. "I gave her all the good lines and made her character flawed but also multi-faceted," says Beran. "I think when she realised I had written her into every scene, she was a bit shocked."

Profile updated on 4 November 2021

Sources include
'Tandi Wright - as seen on TV' (Video Interview). NZ On Screen website. Director James Coleman (Uploaded 3 October 2011). Accessed 28 January 2021
'Tandi Wright' Johnson and Laird website. Accessed 28 January 2021
Louisa Cleave, 'The Tandi Wright way' (Interview) - The NZ Herald, 22 August 2001
Sharon Course, 'Being Tandi' (Interview) - Woman's Day, 15 October 2001, page 31
Wendyl Nissen, 'Tandi Wright's new political role and the unexpected link to Jacinda Ardern' (Interview) - Woman's Day, 3 December 2018
Kimberley Rothwell, 'Right role at just the right time' (Interview) - The Dominion Post (TV Week liftout) 14 September 2010, page 3
Steven Zanowski, 'Shortland Street: The 10 best tales' - The NZ Herald, 16 May 2002
Talking with Tandi' (Interview - broken link) TVNZ website. Accessed 10 August 2010