Sarah Peirse: Multi award-winner…

Award-winning actor Sarah Peirse is best known for her portrayals of two very different mothers — the ill-fated Honorah Rieper in Heavenly Creatures, and the disaffected sophisticate in Rain. Peirse’s first film was the 80s short Queen Street, followed by tele-feature A Woman of Good Character (aka It's Lizzie to those Close). More recently, she has appeared in tele-movies Bliss: The Beginning of Katherine Mansfield and Aftershock.

In this ScreenTalk, Peirse talks about:

• The intense acting journey in A Woman of Good Character
• Playing the gloriously named Vivienne Wallop in Sylvia
• Being heavily pregnant on the set of The Navigator
• Her experience of working with director Vincent Ward
• Being told not to watch Peter Jackson’s previous films prior to working with him on Heavenly Creatures
• Dreaming about the character she played in the film
• Finding the story in the feature film Rain compelling
• Perspectives on her character’s grief and self-destruction
• Playing a 'constrained and compromised' mother in Bliss: The Beginning of Katherine Mansfield
• Not knowing whether or not her work on the The Hobbit films would make the final cut
• Feeling blessed to have been able to do roles integral to many films

This video was first uploaded on 4 February 2013, and is available under this Creative Commons licence. This licence is limited to use of ScreenTalk interview footage only and does not apply to any video content and photographs from films, television, music videos, web series and commercials used in the interview.

Interview, Camera and Editing – Andrew Whiteside