Luanne Gordon

Toi Whakaari graduate Luanne Gordon won a Best Supporting Actress Award for her first movie, 2001 hit Stickmen. By then she'd won the starring role in TV's The Strip, as a woman who leaves a sensible law job to run a male strip club. Nominated for playing a hardbitten detective in 2005 series Interrogation, she then largely left acting during seven years in England (although she co-starred as a Kiwi call girl in Irish comedy Sensation). Since returning home, Gordon has acted in quake drama Hope and Wire, was a key part of a euthanasia plotline on Shortland Street in 2016, and played mother to David Bain in 2020 series Black Hands.

We've yet to write a line that she stuffs up — in terms of understanding her character's motivation for saying whatever it is she's saying — and that's an astounding commendation in itself. Luanne displays complete emotional fearlessness and is absolutely committed to the role. Scriptwriter Chris Ellis, on Luanne Gordon's work on TV series The Strip