\u201c[In other shows] I\u2019ve always been 15 minutes in the makeup chair, because it\u2019s like, slap some powder on and f*** off. But I came in and Kevin, the amazing makeup artist, looked at me and [said] \u201845 minutes\u2019…\u201d <\/p>\n
Dark shadows, model\u2019s own.<\/p>\n
Sometimes, old habits re-emerge at the worst time. Today, as he\u2019s about to have his photo taken, he explains he\u2019s been up since 2am while his now-18-month-old daughter Huia power-chucked her way through the early hours. <\/p>\n
What\u2019s that saying about daughters stealing your beauty?<\/p>\n
During filming of Happiness season two, McNaughton was “the walking dead”.<\/p>\n
There was poetry to this familiar plight of new parenthood playing out on the set of Happiness. While filming season one of the show \u2013 a kaleidoscope series of comedy, musical numbers, possibly the first local series set in Tauranga and almost certainly the first to feature a gay man as the lead character \u2013 McNaughton found out Huia was on her way. Finally. <\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things about how difficult it was, on one level, for us to have a kid is that so many people are so invested [in the process] for you. I was on set when I found out that the fertilisation had been successful. I was in [co-star Rebecca Gibney\u2019s] trailer with her and Robyn [Grace, director] and they burst into tears the same time I did.\u201d<\/p>\n
McNaughton and his husband Koro Dickinson met by chance in 2014, when Dickinson was in Auckland for just 24 hours. They moved in together three weeks later, even though Dickinson was due to relocate to Brazil to become the deputy ambassador (he eventually quit his job and the pair now run a production company). They were married less than two years later. <\/p>\n
If their love story sounds like a whirlwind, their path to becoming parents was not. It was 10 years of hoping and planning and finding a way to grow their family. When you are two men, there\u2019s no leaving it to chance.<\/p>\n
There is an app, though. Or a website. Knowing they wanted to use a surrogate in New Zealand, rather than travelling overseas, they joined Love Makes A Family, which McNaughton describes as \u201cbasically a dating site for surrogates and people who can\u2019t have kids\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe put up this profile and then this woman messaged us out of the blue. We were like, what the f***? And messaged her straight back.\u201d<\/p>\n
They talked, went back and forth for months, before friends demanded to meet Lucie, who was married, had three children and was offering to carry their baby for them. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur bestie was like, \u2018right, so are you guys going to s*** or get off the pot? Because it sounds like everyone\u2019s pretty keen on this, so what\u2019s going on?\u2019,\u201d McNaughton says of the brunch date. <\/p>\n
\u201cI have such a strong memory of how scared I was to hope that it might work.\u201d <\/p>\n
McNaughton and his husband spoke to their surrogate for months before committing. Photo \/ Jason Dorday<\/p>\n
Surrogacy in New Zealand is a long, hard process for everyone involved. Unlike overseas, no money changes hands. Everyone involved is required to undergo counselling, there are medical assessments and each party needs to get legal advice before the family gets approval from an ethics committee, which can take up to six months. <\/p>\n
\u201cThen, you have to obviously go through IVF, which is not an insignificant expense. There\u2019s medical procedures which are huge for people,\u201d McNaughton says. <\/p>\n
\u201cObviously huge for Lucie, but also my sister, who donated her eggs. I don\u2019t know if you know, but donating eggs is horrific. It\u2019s horrific. You\u2019re on fentanyl and they shove a needle this big through the wall of your uterus\u2026 like, what the f***?\u201d<\/p>\n
McNaughton says his sister \u201chalf offered and we half asked her\u201d to be part of the process as an egg donor, which he is still coming to understand the impact of.<\/p>\n
\u201cGuilt…it\u2019s another big part of it. How do you rationalise the fact that these two women have done such an extraordinary thing for you? That takes so much, you know? It\u2019s just such a huge gift.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though exact numbers aren\u2019t known, a 2022 Law Commission report estimated up to 50 children are born in New Zealand each year as a result of surrogacy arrangements. <\/p>\n
In New Zealand, when a baby is born via surrogacy, the intending parents have no legal rights until they adopt their child. It means, at birth, the baby\u2019s legal parents are the surrogate and her partner, if she has one.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been almost a year since McNaughton and Dickinson adopted Huia, when she was 6 months old. On social media, he wrote about it being a \u201cstrange process, having to prove we\u2019re morally, socially and financially fit to parent our biological daughter\u201d.<\/p>\n
Today, he doesn\u2019t like to dwell on that part, preferring to put his energy into the good things that came from the surrogacy process.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were so lucky, not just to have her but to have all these other relationships that have been strengthened as a result of it. I try to focus on that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lucie and her family are part of the McNaughton-Dickinson wh\u0101nau now. And her role in Huia\u2019s life is not a secret, fluid in the way it is explained to their daughter as she grows up.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s nothing we\u2019ll keep a secret from her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rebecca Gibney was with McNaughton when he found out his daughter Huia was on her way. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s been 19 years since an 18-year-old McNaughton joined Shortland Street as receptionist Gerald Tippett and 14 since he left. He and his family still live in \u201cthe house that Shortland Street bought\u201d.<\/p>\n
If a parent\u2019s life is hard to plan, a creative\u2019s might be harder. Often, despite the best intentions, it can be a case of feast or famine. A quiet patch, and then projects that took years to make all come out at the same time. <\/p>\n
McNaughton\u2019s year has been like that. There was Madam, the sex worker comedy starring Aussie actor Rachel Griffiths that he wrote and co-created. He had the same jobs on Head Girl, the fierce \u201ctrauma-dy\u201d based on a poem by Freya Daly Sadgrove. <\/p>\n
Now, there\u2019s his return to Happiness and being in front of the camera.<\/p>\n
He had to be asked three times to audition for the role of Charlie, a local boy made good on Broadway, who then finds himself doing not so good, and is forced back home to Tauranga with his mum, working with the local am-dram society. <\/p>\n
He once said the reticence to act again was because doing something joyful, like performing, came with a layer of selfishness. That feeling hasn\u2019t changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I struggle even more, now that I\u2019ve got a daughter, with this idea of selfishness,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Acting] is such a joyful thing to do. It\u2019s so joyful to be on set. It\u2019s so joyful to be playing with this other person while cameras happen to be pointed at you. I feel so fortunate to be able to do that. And it\u2019s hard not to feel like, \u2018oh, that\u2019s just like a silly little thing that you do\u2019, this kind of, yeah, selfish thing. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd particularly since my daughter\u2019s been born, I\u2019ve [realised], my lord, this industry\u2019s unsustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n
McNaughton in the home he bought while starring in Shortland Street, nearly 20 years ago. Photo \/ Jason Dorday<\/p>\n
So he\u2019s making things happen. He\u2019s creating and writing projects that have interest from American platforms, as well as a couple that will be (hopefully) made here too. He\u2019s just written himself a role in another project because, well, why not? All to say, he\u2019s been busy.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving these meetings in America, they\u2019re like, \u2018sorry, hold on, what have you done?\u2019 And, well yeah. You have to write and act and direct a couple of things and then produce a whole lot of things and then start a production company. That sounds amazing on paper, but you have to pay your mortgage somehow. I can\u2019t just sit around waiting for someone to call. Right? So as hard as it is having that work ethic, born as it is from terror, I do feel fortunate.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s really anxiety-inducing when it\u2019s not just you that you\u2019re doing it for.\u201d<\/p>\n
And that why is everything. McNaughton describes Huia as \u201ca force of nature\u201d, though the family\u2019s home is pristine, with her colourful toys tucked neatly away. Even the \u201cgay houseplants\u201d climbing up the wall are in one piece, safe from a toddler\u2019s grabby hands. (Huia is easily distracted by getting outside, hands in the dirt.)<\/p>\n
Even if she was pure chaos, having tried for a decade to have a baby, McNaughton had a strict rule when Huia was conceived: he didn\u2019t get to \u201cwant\u201d certain things.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have no time for people who are like, \u2018I wish it\u2019s a boy\u2019. You are so lucky to get a happy, healthy child,\u201d he says. Except…<\/p>\n
\u201cOne thing I would never have admitted that I wanted was a child with a sense of humour. And oh my god she has this capacity to turn anything into a joke. And it just floors me. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt sounds so trite, but we spend a lot of our time laughing, all three of us. And that feels like the greatest joy.\u201d <\/p>\n
Happiness starts on Three and ThreeNow, 8.30pm on October 29<\/p>\n
Bridget Jones joined the New Zealand Herald in 2025. She has been a lifestyle and entertainment journalist and editor for more than 15 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201c[In other shows] I\u2019ve always been 15 minutes in the makeup chair, because it\u2019s like, slap some powder…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":639420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[33323,1443,31875,10748,14032,156,29400,2740,27905,17646,9859,1360,2176,2203,97758,313359,111,139,69,5411,2737,5424,23569,6642,1361,210,61,102],"class_list":["post-639419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-10year","tag-about","tag-bridget","tag-came","tag-daughter","tag-entertainment","tag-fatherhood","tag-former","tag-guilt","tag-happiness","tag-harry","tag-having","tag-jones","tag-journey","tag-mcnaughton","tag-mcnaughtons","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-shortland","tag-star","tag-street","tag-surrogacy","tag-tells","tag-that","tag-through","tag-to","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639419","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=639419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}