The Making of Perfect Strangers

I think of that film as being a bookend to Mr Wrong. They are both spooky thrillers with an allegory travelling through. In the case of Perfect Strangers, it is about the dangerous deception of desire, that suggests the prey becoming the predator. In the right mood you may find it funny. In a different one, you may just be terrified.

– Gaylene Preston compares Perfect Strangers to her first feature Mr Wrong, in her 2022 autobiography Gaylene's Take - Her Life in New Zealand Film, page 341

It's a very intimate story, but its set in a very big landscape, and it's set in a very lonely landscape.

– Perfect Strangers producer Robin Laing

...I wanted to be able to move genres, and take this film into gothic and out of gothic, and all over the place.

– Writer/director Gaylene Preston, in the DVD commentary for Perfect Strangers

I like films where goodies are baddies. I have very strong ideas that black and white, goodie versus baddie films are bad for us. I'm also sick of going to pictures where everyone can guess the end before it's even a quarter of the way through.

– Gaylene Preston, Inside Film, 3 October 2003

A little bit aunty, a little bit tyrant, a little bit art-film director. Gaylene's from the West Coast and they breed strong women down there.

– Sam Neill describes Gaylene Preston's approach to directing, after saying he was "tactfully bullied" by her to do the film, Onfilm, December 2003, page 12

Probably one of the most savagely beautiful corners of the world imaginable.

– Sam Neill describes the real life bach on the West Coast where much of the film was shot, Onfilm, December 2003, page 12

He's a complete stranger, and she's totally and utterly magnetised . . . she finds herself drawn to this man, and she doesn't know why. And she follows him to his castle.

– Actor Rachael Blake (who plays Melanie) describes the story

They found this wonderful bach which was better than anything we built.

– Production designer Joe Bleakley describes the film's main location on the West Coast

There's some wild and unpredictable behaviour in this film, and that's very much to do with the wild and unpredictable nature of the place we made it in.

– Actor Sam Neill on filming Perfect Strangers on the West Coast of the South Island

It's really about how far you fall when you fall in love.

– Gaylene Preston describes Perfect Strangers

I knew that she had to be a very special actress to match Sam . . . she had to be not just stunning on-screen, but very hardy off-screen, very resilient psychologically because the psychological journey that Melanie goes through is quite harrowing . . .

– Writer/director Gaylene Preston describes finding the rgiht actor to play Melanie

Melanie's a really interesting character . . . You know she's the everyday sad person that you meet with a smile on their face.

– Actor Rachael Blake describes her character