{"id":520327,"date":"2026-07-11T03:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T03:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/520327\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T03:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T03:57:09","slug":"shortland-street-star-stephen-lovatt-on-life-sobriety-and-performance-after-midlife-lows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/520327\/","title":{"rendered":"Shortland Street star Stephen Lovatt on life, sobriety and performance after midlife lows"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was raised in a mixture of Dad\u2019s traditional heartland Baptist and Mum\u2019s high Anglican. Two versions of the Christian faith<\/a> in direct conflict with each other \u2013 where Dad\u2019s church said the Almighty absolutely split the Red Sea and Mum\u2019s church saw the stories as conceptual interpretations. But Dad\u2019s faith was very gentle and not judgmental. Although neither family was particularly chuffed when they chose each other. They met on a ship coming home from their OEs and they crossed a serious boundary to be with each other.<\/p>\n

\"StephenStephen was 10 and three-quarters lbs at birth. Photo \/ NZ Woman’s Weekly<\/p>\n

Childhood holidays were all about camping. Driving in the country, if we saw a river we liked the look of, we\u2019d pull over and ask the farmer if we could cross their land to pitch our tents. One Christmas when I was about seven, we pitched our tents above the high tide line at Tolaga Bay. I woke around midnight and saw Santa Claus riding along the beach on a motorbike. That was the most magical thing. <\/p>\n

My parents weren\u2019t wealthy, but I was sent to a private boarding school which was a stretch they chose to make. But I was very unhappy there, even though I was aware it was a rare and precious experience. I also had to play rugby, which I hated. Being in the scrum with people punching each other and the coaches winking about it. I just don\u2019t get male violence. <\/p>\n

That school did offer amazing outdoors opportunities, running around with 12kg packs on our backs. Dropped off on a Friday at the base of some ranges with no adults to supervise, then picked up on Sunday night. It was mainly kids from farming or hunting families who chose to do those things. Kids for whom it was the most natural thing to sleep under a tarp. It was all very Boys\u2019 Own Adventure, as well as sneaking down to the river at 2am to share a few Rothmans with our mates.<\/p>\n

I canned out in my first year of university as it was really just a less disciplined version of school. I\u2019d hoped we\u2019d talk about literature, then write things to better understand the world. Instead, we had to make salient points about Sons and Lovers in 1500 words, so I took off and no one heard from me for six months.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I hitch-hiked out of town and was picked up by a guy who needed help operating a machine that made kiwifruit trays. Salt of the earth, I worked like a banshee for this bloke and I lived in his shed just south of Te Puke. On Saturday mornings, I\u2019d walk into town and buy books. Then spend my evenings reading, listening to the radio and playing Five Hundred with the caretaker, a World War II veteran called Jimmy.<\/p>\n

It was tough as I had no friends and I didn\u2019t know how to go to the local pub, which was the home of the Nomads gang. My boss and his brother would go to the Cossie Club, but I didn\u2019t know what that was. I hadn\u2019t ever been part of a drinking culture, aside from my brief stint at university. But it was a very formative time, in the middle of nowhere, listening to my mate Jimmy crying about the things he\u2019d seen in combat. I think it would make a great play. Maybe I\u2019ll write it one day.<\/p>\n

When I returned home, Mum and Dad had people over, so I went to the back door and knocked. Hearing footsteps coming down the hall, my father opened the door. When he saw me, he put his arm around my shoulder like it was the most normal thing in the world. Here\u2019s their son, gone for six months and he just said \u2018Stephen\u2019s home.\u2019 They must\u2019ve decided not to make a big deal and let me tell my story in my own time. My parents were the opposite of helicopters.<\/p>\n

After two years at drama school, I was convinced I was unemployable, so I went to the Whitsundays, where I cleaned toilets at a resort. It was hideous, so when a Wellington director tracked me down to offer me a play at Circa, I was on the first boat out. After that, I was offered Romeo at Downstage, and I spent the \u201980s and \u201990s doing endless theatre.<\/p>\n

\"StephenStephen as Macbeth for Pop Up Globe in Sydney. Photo \/ NZ Woman’s Weekly<\/p>\n

When I moved to Auckland, I couldn\u2019t get work to save myself. I did a few plays and some guesties<\/a> on TV shows, but I was rubbish because back then, we weren\u2019t trained for screen acting. In spite of doubting myself, I made a show reel of the work I had done and I realised maybe I wasn\u2019t the worst actor in the world. <\/p>\n

My whole life, I\u2019ve struggled with imposter syndrome because I didn\u2019t grow up in an arts world. I\u2019m from a family of farmers and engineers, but I went off to Oz with this tape and landed an agent. Two weeks later, I had an 18-month core cast contract on Medivac with Rena Owen, then it was off to the Logies. Even though I always had this sneaking sensation that I was wasting my life, apparently, I wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

After Covid, I became an Uber driver. I thought it would be humiliating but it was a wonderful job. Although you don\u2019t make much money and it is very unhealthy to spend that much time sitting. One guy got in my car on a steamy hot Friday in downtown Auckland. It was about 5.30pm, the roads were jammed and this businessman slumps into the backseat. As we nosed into traffic, he\u2019s doing this really slow, deep breathing. Eventually, I said \u2018Tough day?\u2019 and he cracked right open. Stranger to stranger. This tough-looking operator told me all the things he hated about his job as we crawled along Customhouse Quay. Eventually, we\u2019re on Hobson St, and he started speaking about his wife and daughter, how much he loved them and he remembered why he was doing the job he hated. By the time I dropped him at his door, he was on cloud nine.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if I was an actual alcoholic \u2013 and there was no way I could ever go to AA as I\u2019m not dealing with a Godhead of any kind \u2013 but I have numerous friends who have unhealthy relationships with that drug and I was one of them. Even though I hadn\u2019t come across alcohol in a serious way until after I left school, by my fifties, I was not the person I wanted to be. Alcohol was damaging for me. I was making bad choices and I decided I had to stop. <\/p>\n

\"StephenStephen says 0% beer freed him. Photo \/ Stephen A\u2019Court Photography<\/p>\n

I found a zero alcohol beer that tasted like real beer and I drank that obsessively. That 0% beer turned the screws at the back of my tongue to trick me through a whole month without booze and it freed me. I don\u2019t drink now and I don\u2019t miss it one little bit. I\u2019m incredibly grateful that stopping was relatively easy, which was maybe because it hadn\u2019t been normalised for me in childhood, at home or school. That\u2019s my theory, but who knows?<\/p>\n

I definitely had a midlife crisis. It wasn\u2019t so much crying into the darkness, more a series of despairing moments and being aware of the meaninglessness of life. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s possible to be a conscious person and not find causes for despair, which is why we have to find ways to live with that feeling. To take joy where we can find it and I find it all over the place. In friendships and all sorts of cheesy stuff. Like being a parent and a grandfather, I\u2019m so grateful for that. Things are pretty sweet for me right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

As told to Elisabeth Easther<\/p>\n

Stephen celebrates the legacy of acclaimed playwright Bruce Mason with a double feature of two of his greatest plays, The End of the Golden Weather and Not Christmas, But Guy Fawkes at Q Theatre, July 23-August 2. Visit qtheatre.co.nz for tickets. Stephen will also star in Silo Theatre\u2019s Job from September 3-20. See silotheatre.co.nz <\/p>\n

Alcohol addiction<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I was raised in a mixture of Dad\u2019s traditional heartland Baptist and Mum\u2019s high Anglican. Two versions of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[26220,836,258000,78109,3376,74,2851,95,2346,10779,7972,3390,795,18399,4915,20388,25819,7061,15974,258001,156,14768,63741,8999,23834,8454,424,257998,32854,257999,6092,3025,11692,3244,111,139,42876,69,90,6777,51797,10538,3240,53113,2244,3599,5419,5411,7811,65017,2737,18150,5424,5412,18477,7069,4998,166075,102,1530],"class_list":["post-520327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-26220","tag-836","tag-abrasive","tag-accomplished","tag-actor","tag-after","tag-also","tag-and","tag-award","tag-awards","tag-beach","tag-best","tag-bruce","tag-christmas","tag-classic","tag-connection","tag-deep","tag-doctor","tag-emergency","tag-emmett","tag-entertainment","tag-every","tag-excerpt","tag-extensive","tag-golden","tag-including","tag-life","tag-lovatt","tag-lows","tag-masons","tag-midlife","tag-most","tag-nearly","tag-neighbours","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-numerous","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-performance","tag-performed","tag-play","tag-recently","tag-recipient","tag-resume","tag-roles","tag-screen","tag-shortland","tag-since","tag-sobriety","tag-star","tag-stephen","tag-street","tag-streets","tag-takapuna","tag-theatre","tag-weather","tag-whitman","tag-with","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520327","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=520327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}