Michele Amas

Dunedin-born Michele Amas was an actor for over 30 years, and a poet for at least 10. Amas graduated from drama school Toi Whakaari in 1984. Alongside dozens of theatre roles, Amas made many TV appearances: she was cheeky but "incredibly strong-willed" pathologist Jennifer Collins in Duggan, who has a soft spot for detective Duggan; mother of the teen hero in series Holly's Heroes; and Lauren, long-suffering assistant to an incompetent school principal in black comedy Seven Periods with Mr Gormsby. Amas also directed short film Redial, which competed at the 2002 Venice Film Festival. She passed away on Boxing Day in 2016.

I'm one of these actors that fly under the radar, I don't want to get publicity. People will stop me on the street sometimes and say my characters' name and not mine. I prefer it that way. Michele Amas in Capital Times, 20 January 2010