Oscar Kightley is a celebrated writer, actor, director and television presenter. He is a key part of comedy theatre troupe The Naked Samoans, whose members are behind the hit TV animation series bro’Town and the feature film Sione’s Wedding.
In this ScreenTalk, Kightley talks about:
- His early days working in the theatre
- Being spotted by Dave Gibson while acting in play Fresh off the Boat and being offered a writing gig on comedy TV show Skitz, where he worked with Jemaine Clement, Dave Fane, and Raybon Kan
- Meeting Elizabeth Mitchell at the Auckland Star newspaper, where both were working as journalists, and how Mitchell came up with the idea for bro’Town after watching a Naked Samoans theatre show
- The challenges and unheralded success of bro’Town
- Writing Sione’s Wedding with James Griffin, and how much fun it was to work on the movie
- Making the documentary Made in Taiwan with Nathan Rarere
- His pleasure at being awarded the New Zealand Order or Merit, and his thought that it is really shared with all the people he has worked with
This video
was first uploaded on 27 March 2009, 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 - Clare O'Leary. Camera and Editing - Leo Guerchmann