Teuila Blakely

A founding host for both music channel Channel 4 and hip hop station Flava FM, Samoan-Kiwi Teuila Blakely presented C4 show Freestyle. After writing and starring in 2002 play Island Girls, she expanded into acting. In 2006 Blakely was nominated for an NZ Screen Award for hit movie Sione’s Wedding. She played Leilani, long-suffering girlfriend of a loving man who drinks too much. Adept at both comedy and drama, Blakely's CV includes bro'Town, three years on Shortland Street (as "tough" solo mum Vasa Levi), Westside, Funny Girls and The Brokenwood Mysteries (as a prison boss). In 2015 she competed on Dancing with the Stars.

I am a brown woman and I want to contribute to the normalisation of that... we don't need to be niche. I didn't get into this industry to stay goddamn niche. Teuila Blakely in The NZ Herald, 3 July 2017