Rose Matafeo

Rose Matafeo is of Samoan (her father) and Croatian and Scottish (her mother) descent. Her parents were Rastafarian, but she was more interested in the music of Burt Bacharach. Obsessed with television comedy as a child, she was a fan of Kiwi comic talent Leigh Hart, and encouraged her primary school friends to perform Monty Python sketches. At Auckland Girls' Grammar she "fell into" stand-up comedy. After doing a two week comedy boot camp at age 15, she won an award at the 2007 NZ International Comedy Festival. At 21, she won the coveted Billy T comedy award.

Matafeo dropped out of a film and television course to concentrate on co-hosting U Live (2011 - 2013), on short-lived channel TVNZ U. Irreverent and free-wheeling, the three-hour music and interview slot went out live from a TVNZ hallway. The show gave Matafeo "a crash course" in television presenting and improvising on the spot. The show was also a pioneer in audience engagement, via an interactive Facebook app.   

Matafeo left U Live to write for TV3’s late night comedy show Jono and Ben at Ten. "Any time she would appear in a sketch, she'd steal the whole sketch," says Jono Pryor. "She's just that good". She did speed dating with Paul Henry, boxer Joseph Parker, and American comedian Amy Schumer. In a 2013 profile for TV's Fresh, Matafeo spoke of wanting to write for TV and film: "I want to do it all, guys. And I’m going to do it all. Cue inspirational music."

Over the next five years, "doing it all" included being a panellist on 7 Days, appearances on Seven Sharp, The Project, A Night at the Classic, and this 2011 stand-up comedy special, plus performances with Auckland improv group Snort, and co-hosting celebrity crushes podcast Boners of the Heart, with partner in crime Alice Snedden. At times she abandoned stand-up for a year at a time.    

She was also a lead writer and actor across three seasons of TV3 comedy show Funny Girls. Matafeo and Laura Daniels played comedians working on a TV sketch series, negotiating the compromises forced upon them by their (mostly male) TV bosses. Sketch topics included ‘period chat’, Me Too and baby showers. The female-driven comedy show was lauded as groundbreaking, "fresh and unique" by NZ Herald writer Rachel Bache. The title Funny Girls proved a red flag to sexist naysayers. Said Matafeo to Bache:"At the end of the day it has to be funny. There's no point making a big political statement in a comedy show if it's not funny." 

In-between seasons of Funny Girls and a supermarket cameo in The Breaker Upperers, Matafeo made her base in London. She is a regular on English television, from panel shows to the first episode of post-coital comedy Climaxed. Proud to be making a living doing comedy, she was "also very aware it could all come crashing down very fast. Comedy is not an incredibly stable career – for some people it is, but not for people like me, who hate performing live!”  She talks in detail about her love-hate relationship with live comedy, in this extended interview for 2019 TV series Funny As. 

The self-described reluctant actor plays characters candidly exploring sex, love and death. While selling-out stand-up shows in Soho, Matafeo muses about "giving up on your dreams" and has openly discussed her mental health struggles. She told The NZ Herald in 2016: "I feel in a small way, you may as well just talk about that, because it will help more people than piss people off. Also, I've got some sick jokes about it." 

Built around past pashes, stand-up show Horndog explored the contradictions of being a young woman in the 21st century. In mid 2018 Matafeo became the first solo person of colour to win the top award at the 2018 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the world's biggest arts festival. Horndog was named Best Comedy Show, one of live comedy's highest accolades. Guardian critic Brian Logan wrote that Matafeo’s "neuroses, intelligence and flamboyant sense of her own ridiculousness make her a near-perfect comedian". That same year, she performed as part of the United Kingdom's Royal Variety Performance, and created three-part web series Temp, starring as an unlucky contract worker. 

Matafeo also joined the ensemble of Australian comedy series Squinters, based around a group of Sydney commuters. By the time the second season aired in mid 2019 she was taking on starring roles, and also directing episodes of small-town Kiwi comedy Golden Boy, including co-directing this early episode.

In sitcom Starstruck — written by Matafeo — she is set to star as a woman balancing dead-end jobs, who accidentally sleeps with a movie star. The London-set series is made by BBC Three and streaming service HBO Max.

She has also completed a starring role back in New Zealand: movie comedy Baby Done. Matafeo plays a tree surgeon on a frantic mission to complete her bucket list before she gives birth. The film was brought to her by Fantail couple Sophie Henderson (who wrote the script) and director Curtis Vowell. The Kiwi release will likely be in October 2020. The cast includes Brit Matthew Lewis (Harry Potter) and Emily Barclay (In My Father's Den). "I failed NCEA level three drama", said Matafeo, "so this is a big win for me personally".

Profile updated on 8 July 2020

Sources include
'Rose Matafeo' Avalon website. Accessed 28 January 2020  
'Rose Matafeo - Funny As Interview' (Video Interview) NZ On Screen website. Director Rupert Mackenzie. Loaded 30 August 2019. Accessed 15 January 2020
'Jono Pryor and Ben Boyce - Funny As Interview' (Video Interview) NZ On Screen website. Director Rupert Mackenzie. Loaded 6 September 2019. Accessed 28 January 2020
Rachel Bache, 'Funny Girls returns: How Rose Matafeo and Laura Daniels became NZ's first ladies of LOL'  (Interview) - The NZ Herald, 1 October 2016
Greg Bruce, ‘Rose Matafeo on the highs and lows of stand-up comedy’ (Interview) - The NZ Herald (Canvas liftout), 14 May 2016
Alex Casey, ‘Kids in the hallway: the complete history of TVNZ U’ The Spinoff website. Loaded 1 September 2018. Accessed 28 January 2020
Bridget Jones, ‘Funny Girls? Rose Matafeo hits back at critics, says Me Too hasn't changed comedy writing’, (Interview) Stuff website. Loaded 6 May 2018. Accessed 28 January 2020
Jehee Junn, ’Funny Girls hasn’t changed one bit – and that’s not a bad thing’, (Review of Funny Girls) The Wireless website. Loaded 3 October 2016. Accessed 28 January 2020
Brian Logan, 'Comic Rose Matafeo: 'I definitely probably have a moderate amount of talent' (Interview) - The Guardian, 3 August 2017
Brian Logan, ‘Edinburgh award champ Rose Matafeo's Horndog is a comedy smash’ - The Guardian, 25 August 2018
Joe Otterson, 'HBO Max Teams With BBC Three on Comedy Series 'Starstruck'' Variety website. Loaded 12 August 2019. Accessed 28 January 2020
Vanessa Thorpe and Veronica Lee, ‘Rose Matafeo wins Edinburgh best comedy show award’ - The Guardian, 25 August 2018
Unknown writer, 'Rose Matafeo and Matthew Lewis to Star in Piki Films Comedy Baby, Done' NZ Film Commission website. Loaded 5 March 2019. Accessed 28 January 2020