Her latest role is maybe the most gory of all, starring in the hit Evil Dead film franchise.
It’s scary stuff and as she continues to stack up the horror hits, the question has to be asked: is Tandi Wright New Zealand’s ultimate Scream Queen?
Perhaps. She’s certainly helped break the mould for what it means to be one.
Tandi Wright stars as Susan in the latest Evil Dead film. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
“A lot of my more interesting roles in this phase of my career have been in horror,” Wright says.
“They are deeply flawed, complex, not always very nice [characters], but they’re layered women, and that is a joy to play.”
In Wright’s early days in the industry, horror roles were all about the damsel-in-distress storyline, where women in skimpy clothes were chopped up or maimed.
“For me, it was like, ugh, there’s nothing here for me. But it’s different now. The horror genre is one of the most creative places in cinema, I think.”
Unlearning lessons
It was 1995 when Shortland Street fans first met Wright’s incomparable nurse Caroline Buxton. And she soon became synonymous with scandal (think murder accusations, ground-breaking gay storylines and no less than eight different relationships).
The role was one of her first after finishing an acting degree, and the soap’s set “sort of became her little lab”, as she learned the realities of fast turnaround television.
Wright says Shortland Street became a “little lab” for learning how to be a working actor.
Acting off scripts that “maybe could have done with another set of eyes”, working fast, making decisions quickly when the light was fading – those are lifelong skills she’s forever grateful for. But there were downsides.
“You don’t get the chance to go deeper. You don’t get the chance to fish around and find more nuanced options that might be more interesting,” she says.
And she’s had to unlearn a few things over the years.
“It’s taken me a long time to, in a way, regain my agency back.
“Because at Shorty, you’re part of such a machine. You’re just scraping through and hanging on and getting by and doing what you need to.
“But the idea of taking the space you need to take to do really good film work, that’s taken me a long time.”
‘We don’t need to put up with this bull****’
Agency is something that features in her work off-screen, too. Wright became involved in intimacy co-ordinating after seeing widespread harm within the industry, unmasked by the Me Too movement.
The job, in the words of Intimacy co-ordinators Aotearoa, is to “cultivate a safe and professional environment for the crafting of intimate content”.
And no, that isn’t just choreographing sex scenes; it’s also managing emotional safety and making sure actors and crew are on the same page.
Wright continues to see a huge demand for the work on sets across the country.
“I was like, ‘oh for God’s sake, people need to be safe when they go to work’. We need to be safe. We didn’t need to put up with this s*** anymore. It’s just bull****,” she says.
In 2021, she told The Spinoff she had examined her own behaviour in the past, after putting up with things she “probably shouldn’t have”.
And after attending a couple of workshops, she realised it was something she wanted to champion.
“The skills I have as an actor do not qualify me for many things, but I think I have the skills to do this job.”
Tandi Wright also played Lane, the cult like leader of Wellness in Creamerie.
There were plenty of times, however, when giving up acting was, in fact, very much on the table.
“It’s very ambitious to be an actor in New Zealand and try to make a living at it. It’s incredibly hard.
“Sometimes it’s crushingly hard. And then when I added intimacy co-ordination I thought, ‘does this mean I’ve failed? Have I finally failed? I always knew I would fail, here I am failing’,” she says.
“But then I thought, you know what, this is going to make me a better actor as well.”
A bleeding heart
Wright continues to impress abroad and at home with a string of upcoming major international productions.
On Netflix’s adaptation of John Steinbeck’s epic East of Eden, shot in New Zealand and starring Dune actor Florence Pugh, she worked as an intimacy co-ordinator and acted.
“I double-dipped …that was phenomenal. I’m so excited for that [to be released] because the source material is amazing.”
Then, there is Evil Dead: Burn.
Her return to horror was good timing. The genre is exploding, with recent films like Backrooms and Obsession both making more than $275 million at the box office world wide since their release in May.
Evil Dead: Burn is the sixth instalment of the brutal franchise started by visionary director and producer Sam Raimi in 1981.
Like East of Eden, it was shot here as well, predominantly thanks to American/Kiwi producer Rob Tapert (Xena) championing New Zealand and its local talent (Kiwis Erroll Shand and Luciane Buchanan also play starring roles).
The franchise has been shot in New Zealand since its first major reboot – the series’ fourth film Evil Dead – in 2013, marking it as a major international player for our industry.
Producers even call New Zealand the film’s “production heartland”.
New Zealand is The Evil Dead franchises “production heartland”. Photo / Matt Klitscher
Known for its graphic, over-the-top violence and gore, the films follow an ancient curse that turns its victims into bloodthirsty zombies called “deadites”. Think exploding organs, body horror, and jump scares galore.
Ironically, Wright admits she’s actually “quite terrified” of watching scary films, although she appreciates the shared experience of sitting in a movie theatre going through the shock and squirm.
And while she has been on a few tense shoots over the year, she underestimated the scale of what would be required of her in this behemoth of a production.
“I thought, okay, horror film, it will be a lot of running around, be physically hard, I’ll be covered in blood, fine.
“But what I didn’t realise was how emotional it would be, and it was. It required head, heart and body.”
A mother to a teenage daughter with husband, Michael Beran, it was the themes of family within the film that spoke to her in her role as Susan, a mother grappling with the loss of her son.
It was “open-heart beating on the table,” type stuff, both literally and figuratively.
“The film, at its heart, is really a domestic drama. It’s a family that is falling apart.
“This character is pretty buttoned down, and she’s used to being in control of everything. Then all this stuff starts happening, and she can’t control anything.”
Watch the trailer for Evil Dead: Burn. The story continues after the video
Despite the heightened emotions, she says keeping things under control was no issue at home after a hard day’s shoot.
“There’s nothing wrong with a gin and tonic at the end of the day,” Wright laughs.
“You go home to your family, the dog doesn’t care what I’ve been doing, my daughter doesn’t care what I’ve been doing, they’re like, ‘we need you to do this, you need to do that etc’.
“It’s sort of like you rocket back into your everyday.”
Heading home at the end of the shoot wasn’t exactly the end of Wright’s brush with sharp objects. Although she insists impaling or killing wasn’t part of the equation. Not of people anyway.
“I went on a kind of mad dahlia planting spree,” she says.
“I spent about a week in the garden. Getting into the earth definitely recalibrates me when my system is jangled.”
Mitchell Hageman joined the Herald’s entertainment and lifestyle team in 2024. He previously worked as a multimedia journalist for Hawke’s Bay Today.