It wasn\u2019t until Matafeo returned to Aotearoa last year to film New Zealand Spy with close friend (and Taskmaster NZ assistant) Paul Williams that the opportunity to join the cast of the seventh series presented itself. Matafeo was keen to spend more time working at home, but it\u2019s so unheard of for a former Taskmaster contestant to compete in a different country\u2019s series that she had to text the show\u2019s creator Alex Horne to check if she was even allowed to do it.\u00a0\u201cHe was like, it\u2019s fine, I don\u2019t care,\u201d remembers Matafeo. \u201cHe\u2019s been on the record as saying he\u2019d love to do Taskmaster NZ himself. I think he\u2019d do it, but he just doesn\u2019t have the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the Little Alex Horne seal of approval, Matafeo joined what she calls a \u201cdream cast\u201d of New Zealand actors and comedians for the seventh season. Alongside Dave Fane, Hoani Hotene, Morgana O\u2019Reilly and Rhys Mathewson, Matafeo will undergo a series of pointless and perplexing tasks in the hope of winning points from Taskmaster Jeremy Wells. You might think that having extensive experience as both Taskmaster and contestant would give Matafeo an unfair advantage over her fellow competitors, but she\u2019s not so sure.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe my enemies would say that,\u201d she deadpans, before arguing that her prior Taskmaster experience actually worked against her. \u201cI\u2019m the heel, you know. I\u2019m The Undertaker<\/a>. I\u2019m the bad guy in WWE.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n There\u2019s always plenty to wrestle with on Taskmaster, but Matafeo found making the show at home a much different experience to filming her first British season. \u201cWhen I did it here [in the UK], no one knew who I was,\u201d she remembers, adding that she was far more nervous to film the West Auckland studio episodes than she was at Pinewood in 2019. \u201cI was like \u2018oh shit, people I know are in the crowd\u2019.\u201d Her nerves were eased by the fact she already knew many of Taskmaster NZ\u2019s local crew, with friends like Josh Thomson and Chris Parker directing some of this season\u2019s episodes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Coming back to New Zealand also gave Matafeo a chance to work with some of her longtime comedy heroes. She\u2019s known Mathewson since she was 15, when they met in teenage comedy training programme Class Comedians, and she reckons Fane is one of the funniest people on the planet (\u201cHe just keeps talking. He won\u2019t stop until you stop him.\u201d) Despite not knowing the \u201cbrilliant and amazing\u201d O\u2019Reilly or the \u201cunbelievably witty\u201d Hotene before filming, the five contestants quickly gelled to create the magical comedic chemistry Taskmasker is renowned for. \u201cI feel sorry for all the other casts,\u201d Matafeo says. \u201cI think this is the best one.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n It also helped that Williams was there too, and the chance to spend five days filming back-to-back tasks together with her best friend was one of the main reasons Matafeo agreed to Taskmaster NZ. Matafeo says the familiarity of their relationship took the chaos to a new level. \u201cThere are moments where I am just genuinely losing it with him, and I can tell he\u2019s losing it as well.\u201d Matafeo was also thrilled to work with Fane and Wells, having spent her teenage years watching Fane in Tongan Ninja<\/a> and listening to Wells every morning on bFM. Sitting beside them in the Auckland studio \u2013 while also wearing a Havoc and Newsboy T-shirt \u2013 made being part of Taskmaster NZ a true highlight of Matafeo\u2019s illustrious career.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI was so much more starstruck with the people I did this with than the UK version,\u201d she says. \u201cMaybe apart from Jo Brand. She\u2019s pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\nMatafeo with the cast of Taskmaster NZ season seven. (Photo: Supplied)<\/p>\n
Matafeo and Mike Wozniak on Taskmaster Junior in 2024 (Photo: Supplied)<\/p>\n