PSA: I'm going to share some of my archive content as I started this acct years after I became a journo and have interviewed so many amazing peeps who never made it to the ‘gram! First up, from Dec 2025:
Distinguished Canadian-born director James Cameron, who marked the release of Avatar: Fire and Ash with the most significant film premiere Wellington has seen since 2012, says he'd love to talk to the Government about improving the rebate scheme for filmmakers, to entice more productions to choose Aotearoa as a screen destination.
“It could be better,” Cameron told me in a wide-ranging interview in December, ahead of a screening of the visual spectacle Fire and Ash at Courtenay Place’s Embassy, after a red carpet event that closed roads and drew crowds in the thousands.
Fire and Ash is the third film to be released in the epic science fiction franchise, following the release of Avatar in 2009 and Avatar: The Way of Water in 2022, but was the only one to have its Australasian premiere in the city that helped to make it, as well as the city that Cameron now calls home with his wife Suzy (pictured).
Cameron, who was an illustrator and artist before becoming a filmmaker and who was made a New Zealand citizen in 2025, told me that he approaches cinema as a sort of illustrative art. “I just feel like I’m painting with pixels and photons, as opposed to paints,” he said.
Fire and Ash, which runs for nearly three and a half hours but flies by due to its engrossing and immersive nature, is more emotionally intense than its predecessors. Dealing with themes of family, colonisation and humanity’s impact on and relationship with the natural environment, Cameron says the film’s heightened sense of jeopardy was deliberate.
“Action is a cathartic thing, but only if you’ve built the suspense on the jeopardy beforehand, and [have] the emotional commitment of the audience. If the audience doesn’t care about the people that are being plunged into these action situations, then it just sort of plays out as a kind of spectacle," he said.
🔗Full feature at the link in my bio! Pix by
@moniquefordnz for
@thepostnz of James and Suzy Amis at the Wellington premiere on Dec 13, 2025.
![Just as William Shakespeare moved from comedy into tragedy, Suzy Eddie Izzard is doing the same – not across decades, but as it happens.The British stand-up comedian, actor and activist is bringing two different shows to Aotearoa over a two-month period this year: a remixed celebration of her surrealist comedy and a stark, one-person performance of Hamlet – adapted by her brother Mark and directed by Selina Cadell – in which she plays all 23 characters on a bare stage.Taken together, they capture an artist in motion and reflect the multi-Emmy Award winner’s desire to still push into new territory, more than four decades into her illustrious arts career.In true Izzard fashion, absolutely nothing about the plan is static.“[New Zealand and Australia] will be the first two countries to ever see this happening in real time. I don’t think anyone’s done this kind of stuff before, going from surreal comedy to drama and tragedy in just a month’s time,” she explains.For the cover of our sister magazine Your Weekend, Izzard talks to @andre.chumko about the legacy of Shakespeare, queerness, and why everyone should live life as though it's an adventure.](https://sp1.picnob.com/p/pt_6739642748186063551127_0_f376068dd60c70cb98552245a409af9f.jpg?o=aHR0cHM6Ly9zY29udGVudC1pYWQzLTEuY2RuaW5zdGFncmFtLmNvbS92L3Q1MS44Mjc4Ny0xNS82NzE2Mzc2NzBfMTg1Mjc2MTQ0MjAwNzU1OTdfMjM1OTE4MDQyMjI4ODU4ODgzOF9uLmpwZz9zdHA9YzAuMTM1LjEwODAuMTA4MGFfZHN0LWpwZ19lMzVfczY0MHg2NDBfc2gyLjA4X3R0NiZfbmNfaHQ9c2NvbnRlbnQtaWFkMy0xLmNkbmluc3RhZ3JhbS5jb20mX25jX2NhdD0xMDEmX25jX29jPVE2Y1oyZ0VGWFlmckU4Mlc1cUlVcG1IeEhlVUllcktoU2g4SVNDVmZ5OUJzTWNYaHBmTkZKVHQ1djl6YWRzd29jMk9oam1qaG40cUs5bXFPTm92ZFNISFpDb1djJl9uY19vaGM9ZVY0WS16R3VBVWdRN2tOdndINzlCSmgmX25jX2dpZD13SlA1SW1WMnBpaVBMQlNOVTlGM0VRJmVkbT1BUFU4OUZBQkFBQUEmY2NiPTctNSZvaD0wMF9BZjVUZF82MmNVc2lVel80TDhYXy1jdHA4WGI2MVh5OC1aTnY1VlhaTFNOX093Jm9lPTZBMTBFNzc3Jl9uY19zaWQ9YmMwYzJj&h=6a3002f10ab51e16e94a625935c8f959)
![PSA: I'm going to share some of my archive content as I started this acct years after I became a journo and have interviewed so many amazing peeps who never made it to the ‘gram! First up, from Dec 2025:Distinguished Canadian-born director James Cameron, who marked the release of Avatar: Fire and Ash with the most significant film premiere Wellington has seen since 2012, says he'd love to talk to the Government about improving the rebate scheme for filmmakers, to entice more productions to choose Aotearoa as a screen destination.“It could be better,” Cameron told me in a wide-ranging interview in December, ahead of a screening of the visual spectacle Fire and Ash at Courtenay Place’s Embassy, after a red carpet event that closed roads and drew crowds in the thousands.Fire and Ash is the third film to be released in the epic science fiction franchise, following the release of Avatar in 2009 and Avatar: The Way of Water in 2022, but was the only one to have its Australasian premiere in the city that helped to make it, as well as the city that Cameron now calls home with his wife Suzy (pictured).Cameron, who was an illustrator and artist before becoming a filmmaker and who was made a New Zealand citizen in 2025, told me that he approaches cinema as a sort of illustrative art. “I just feel like I’m painting with pixels and photons, as opposed to paints,” he said.Fire and Ash, which runs for nearly three and a half hours but flies by due to its engrossing and immersive nature, is more emotionally intense than its predecessors. Dealing with themes of family, colonisation and humanity’s impact on and relationship with the natural environment, Cameron says the film’s heightened sense of jeopardy was deliberate.“Action is a cathartic thing, but only if you’ve built the suspense on the jeopardy beforehand, and [have] the emotional commitment of the audience. If the audience doesn’t care about the people that are being plunged into these action situations, then it just sort of plays out as a kind of spectacle," he said. Full feature at the link in my bio! Pix by @moniquefordnz for @thepostnz of James and Suzy Amis at the Wellington premiere on Dec 13, 2025.](https://sp1.picnob.com/p/pt_6739571555131556486872_0_dc42271c5c3999da322a29c3c10a8800.jpg?o=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&h=ba1bb4b7c130b99126f30bf71860dc71)
![A quarter of a century after he first stepped into Middle-earth, English actor and filmmaker Andy Serkis is back in Wellington - returning not just to the role that defined his career, but to a city he still considers a second home.Now, he’s preparing to direct and star in The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum - a new live-action film set between the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogies. For Serkis, the project is helping reconnect him with long-time collaborators and a film community he says feels like family.“I’ve spent so many years working here ... it’s always a pleasure coming back. I’ve got such happy memories. My kids have spent a lot of time here growing up.”While it has been more than a decade since the final Hobbit film was released, the fictional world of Middle-earth has never been too far away for Serkis.During the Covid-19 pandemic, and after he participated in an all-in-one reading of The Hobbit for charity, Serkis was asked to record an audiobook version of the story for Audible.With The Hunt for Gollum, Serkis says he and the film’s co-creators were interested in investigating the possibility of redemption for a character you’d judge as being irredeemable.“The whole notion of prejudice and judging and being so polarised that you can’t see another point of view is something that the character [Gollum] brings out in whoever he comes into contact with.”A full cast announcement is expected this month. Names linked to the project include Kate Winslet as the reported female lead character, plus reprisals of Elijah Wood as Frodo Baggins, Sir Ian McKellen as Gandalf and Serkis as Gollum. Read my full feature from the weekend edition of @thepostnz at the link in my bio. Photographs by @davidunwin](https://sp1.picnob.com/p/pt_6739414662311416233757_0_6a0dbc18ba0eb1285c19c98b786215d0.jpg?o=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&h=beb2b4a8cc2eff8a2ecb002849130d85)
