Her latest role is maybe the most gory of all, starring in the hit Evil Dead film franchise. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s scary stuff and as she continues to stack up the horror hits, the question has to be asked: is Tandi Wright New Zealand\u2019s ultimate Scream Queen? <\/p>\n
Perhaps. She\u2019s certainly helped break the mould for what it means to be one.<\/p>\n
Tandi Wright stars as Susan in the latest Evil Dead film. Photo \/ Sylvie Whinray <\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of my more interesting roles in this phase of my career have been in horror,\u201d Wright says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are deeply flawed, complex, not always very nice [characters], but they\u2019re layered women, and that is a joy to play.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Wright\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, it was like, ugh, there\u2019s nothing here for me. But it\u2019s different now. The horror genre is one of the most creative places in cinema, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unlearning lessons<\/p>\n
It was 1995 when Shortland Street fans first met Wright\u2019s 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). <\/p>\n
The role was one of her first after finishing an acting degree, and the soap\u2019s set \u201csort of became her little lab\u201d, as she learned the realities of fast turnaround television. <\/p>\n
Wright says Shortland Street became a “little lab” for learning how to be a working actor. <\/p>\n
Acting off scripts that \u201cmaybe could have done with another set of eyes\u201d, working fast, making decisions quickly when the light was fading \u2013 those are lifelong skills she\u2019s forever grateful for. But there were downsides.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t get the chance to go deeper. You don\u2019t get the chance to fish around and find more nuanced options that might be more interesting,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n
And she\u2019s had to unlearn a few things over the years.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s taken me a long time to, in a way, regain my agency back. <\/p>\n
\u201cBecause at Shorty, you\u2019re part of such a machine. You\u2019re just scraping through and hanging on and getting by and doing what you need to. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut the idea of taking the space you need to take to do really good film work, that\u2019s taken me a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018We don\u2019t need to put up with this bull****\u2019<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
The job, in the words of Intimacy co-ordinators Aotearoa, is to \u201ccultivate a safe and professional environment for the crafting of intimate content\u201d. <\/p>\n
And no, that isn\u2019t just choreographing sex scenes; it\u2019s also managing emotional safety and making sure actors and crew are on the same page.<\/p>\n
Wright continues to see a huge demand for the work on sets across the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was like, \u2018oh for God\u2019s sake, people need to be safe when they go to work\u2019. We need to be safe. We didn\u2019t need to put up with this s*** anymore. It\u2019s just bull****,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n
In 2021, she told The Spinoff she had examined her own behaviour in the past, after putting up with things she \u201cprobably shouldn\u2019t have\u201d.<\/p>\n
And after attending a couple of workshops, she realised it was something she wanted to champion.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe skills I have as an actor do not qualify me for many things, but I think I have the skills to do this job.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tandi Wright also played Lane, the cult like leader of Wellness in Creamerie.<\/p>\n
There were plenty of times, however, when giving up acting was, in fact, very much on the table.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very ambitious to be an actor in New Zealand and try to make a living at it. It\u2019s incredibly hard. <\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes it\u2019s crushingly hard. And then when I added intimacy co-ordination I thought, \u2018does this mean I\u2019ve failed? Have I finally failed? I always knew I would fail, here I am failing\u2019,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut then I thought, you know what, this is going to make me a better actor as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
A bleeding heart<\/p>\n
Wright continues to impress abroad and at home with a string of upcoming major international productions.<\/p>\n
On Netflix\u2019s adaptation of John Steinbeck\u2019s epic East of Eden, shot in New Zealand and starring Dune actor Florence Pugh, she worked as an intimacy co-ordinator and acted.<\/p>\n
\u201cI double-dipped …that was phenomenal. I\u2019m so excited for that [to be released] because the source material is amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then, there is Evil Dead: Burn.<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
Evil Dead: Burn is the sixth instalment of the brutal franchise started by visionary director and producer Sam Raimi in 1981. <\/p>\n
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).<\/p>\n
The franchise has been shot in New Zealand since its first major reboot \u2013 the series\u2019 fourth film Evil Dead \u2013 in 2013, marking it as a major international player for our industry. <\/p>\n
Producers even call New Zealand the film\u2019s \u201cproduction heartland\u201d.<\/p>\n
New Zealand is The Evil Dead franchises “production heartland”. Photo \/ Matt Klitscher<\/p>\n
Known for its graphic, over-the-top violence and gore, the films follow an ancient curse that turns its victims into bloodthirsty zombies called \u201cdeadites\u201d. Think exploding organs, body horror, and jump scares galore.<\/p>\n
Ironically, Wright admits she\u2019s actually \u201cquite terrified\u201d of watching scary films, although she appreciates the shared experience of sitting in a movie theatre going through the shock and squirm.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought, okay, horror film, it will be a lot of running around, be physically hard, I\u2019ll be covered in blood, fine. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut what I didn\u2019t realise was how emotional it would be, and it was. It required head, heart and body.\u201d<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
It was \u201copen-heart beating on the table,\u201d type stuff, both literally and figuratively.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe film, at its heart, is really a domestic drama. It\u2019s a family that is falling apart. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis character is pretty buttoned down, and she\u2019s used to being in control of everything. Then all this stuff starts happening, and she can\u2019t control anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Watch the trailer for Evil Dead: Burn. The story continues after the video<\/p>\n
Despite the heightened emotions, she says keeping things under control was no issue at home after a hard day\u2019s shoot.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s nothing wrong with a gin and tonic at the end of the day,\u201d Wright laughs.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou go home to your family, the dog doesn\u2019t care what I\u2019ve been doing, my daughter doesn\u2019t care what I\u2019ve been doing, they\u2019re like, \u2018we need you to do this, you need to do that etc\u2019. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s sort of like you rocket back into your everyday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Heading home at the end of the shoot wasn\u2019t exactly the end of Wright\u2019s brush with sharp objects. Although she insists impaling or killing wasn\u2019t part of the equation. Not of people anyway.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went on a kind of mad dahlia planting spree,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI spent about a week in the garden. Getting into the earth definitely recalibrates me when my system is jangled.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mitchell Hageman joined the Herald\u2019s entertainment and lifestyle team in 2024. He previously worked as a multimedia journalist for Hawke\u2019s Bay Today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Her latest role is maybe the most gory of all, starring in the hit Evil Dead film franchise.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":510140,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[14146,690,156,29480,593,2740,71,5431,1364,410,78,5430,409,111,139,69,90,10112,3366,48336,31699,6180,5411,2737,5424,253908,6642,2044,6860,253909,6923,3543,1959],"class_list":["post-510139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-burn","tag-dead","tag-entertainment","tag-evil","tag-film","tag-former","tag-from","tag-hageman","tag-her","tag-horror","tag-in","tag-mitchell","tag-movies","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-power","tag-queen","tag-reclaiming","tag-scream","tag-shes","tag-shortland","tag-star","tag-street","tag-tandi","tag-tells","tag-time","tag-typical","tag-unlearn","tag-what","tag-wright","tag-your"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}