Real Life With John CowanFern Sutherland, born in New Plymouth, began her acting career as a lead artist in short films produced by the UNITEC Performing Arts School. She gained early experience in theatre, appearing in productions such as Silo Theatre's Ensemble Project 08 and the Auckland Theatre Company's plays. Transitioning to television, Sutherland took on roles in South Pacific Pictures productions, including appearances in shows like Go Girls and The Almighty Johnsons.
Sutherland's breakthrough came with her role in The Almighty Johnsons where her performance garnered critical acclaim and award nominations. Following this success, she secured a prominent role in the New Zealand television series The Brokenwood Mysteries, portraying a sharp and formal small-town detective. The show provided her with further exposure and established her as a notable figure in New Zealand television.
Outside of acting, Fern Sutherland divides her time between New Zealand and Thailand. In Thailand, she spends extended periods practising Muay Thai in Phuket, reflecting her dedication to both her career and personal interests beyond acting.
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Today. Welcome to Real Life. I'm John Cowen. And a few years ago the world started thinking of New Zealand as Middle Earth. Now in about one hundred and fifty countries, some TV viewers are thinking of New Zealand as a place of charming rural towns with appalling murder rates. The Broken with Mysteries and now in their tenth series and an international hit, and joining me tonight is one of the stars of that show, Fern Sutherland. Welcome Fern.
Hello.
It's amazing how well it's done, isn't it? That show?
It is? It continually surprises and delights me. How people have really kind of found the show and are enjoying it. It's been great.
Well, and the good news is that the Fern that the fans are watching series ten and you're already filming series eleven.
I know, and please don't ask me any questions about season ten because I can't remember a single thing. I can't remember any of the goings on in any of the seasons. It's all just a big blur.
Well that's good because if you kept the mental record of every script that you've done, now, after all those series.
No you do, you get really good at throwing out what you don't need. So yeah, as we're working, even just daily, we get really good at like absorbing the scene that we need to absorb and then getting rid of it and getting the next one.
And it's yeah, well it saves a mental clutter, doesn't it a clear.
Of It is amazing how your brain works.
Yeah, I wish mine did. Now you've got one of the rarest things that a New Zealand actor can have, and that is a consistent, continuing career. I mean, apart from a few actors in Shortland Street, who else gets that? I know, what a luxury.
I feel so so very grateful especially, Yeah, it just feels really good to be a working actor in this country. And I think in the arts generally it's a pretty gnarly time and in the media industry as well. So yeah, I just feel very very grateful to have this work, for sure.
And it leaves room in your calendar for other things, Like you've done a few movies. How was that?
Yeah, really quite different. Actually, I'd never really done a film before. So I did a mistake a couple of years ago now, which is coming out at the Film Festival in August.
And so you didn't get to the New York premiere.
No, I wasn't invited. I must have been lost in the mail or something. I'm not sure, but anyway, it's really busy at the time, so that's fine. So yeah, it was. It's been cool. And then The Mountain that came out earlier this year, been very lucky. Like, I haven't had a lot of film work, but the film work I've had was pretty cool.
But the thing is, each episode of The Broken Mysteries is movie leak. Yeah, but I guess they do it in a slightly different way. I guess filming for TV, you're probably racing through it with a little bit more.
Yeah, we sort of film an episode every kind of two and a half almost three weeks, which is sort of wild because it takes, you know, a couple of months often to film a film that sort of low budget too. So yeah, we we pump out a lot of content in a short amount of time with not a lot of money, and I am really proud of what comes out at the end of that. The finished product is something that we're all really proud of.
It's good and yet one of the parts of part of the charm is I have someone described it as low fi. Yeah, I mean, yeah, you know, it's you know, it's regnizably New Zealand production, and that has a certain charm to it about that. Yeah.
Yeah, I think you're right. I think it is maybe not as sexy and sophisticated as a lot of those you know, shiny, procedural sort of American shows where there are lots of labs and forensics and guns and you know, everyone's got lots of makeup on and all of the things. There's nothing wrong with those shows.
Don't know, you're wrong. Police have said, there's quite a bit of realism. What you do, I know, the un constable that says you that's apart from the fact that you wear sweaters underneath, you've got your body are and we're never able.
To do that spend your disbelief at Apart.
From that, it's very realistic. And now you've got some help in doing that from Cat Preston.
Yeah, yep, so Tim also has someone that he draws on, you know, when he's writing the scripts as well, does he sends it off to just make sure that things are mostly pretty accurate. Yes, we don't want to offend anybody, any of our boys and girls in blue.
And I'd say, yes, it's mostly accurate, apart from the fact we don't have twenty five different suspects each each one. Yeah, seem incredible and the likely candidate. No, it we'll switch around.
And also how how are there still people alive in this town at this point? But yes, my so, my friend Katherine, she we went to high school together. She's amazing and she's been really just a wealth of knowledge and yeah, she's great.
No, it's intentional in mentioning her because I wanted to segue into your Tara Naki up bringing. Yes, and that's where your roots are. Well, actually your roots go back even further back too, is at Manga Keno.
Yeah, look at you go with your research. Yes, So my parents were sharing contractors, so they were running a gang of sharers in and around sort of kin country, Waikato sort of region. So yeah, I grew up on sheep farms really and then we moved to New Plymouth.
Do you feel like a country girl?
I do, yeah, And they still live pretty rurally in Tartanuki. So when I go back there, I get to sort of have that part of my you know, scratch that it if you like. And I feel really lucky to have that. So yeah. And then I went to high school in New Plymouth and that's where Catherine and I met and we've sort of remained friends. Nil's from Neil Ray, my esteemed colleague is also from Taranaki. Lots of really cool, talented, deeply attractive people are from there. So shout outs to the Naki.
And the movie you filmed recently was filmed down there the mountain.
Yeah, what a but it just fortuitous, amazing thing to happen. I was actually in Thailand at the time when I got to audition for that, but and I had to come home a lot earlier than I sort of planned to. But just the thought of being able to film my first film, oh sorry, my second film, but to film up the mountain, which is such a massive part of there. It is, there's a picture of it in your studio. It's such an iconic, beautiful thing, that living entity, if you will, that I thought I would. I can't say no, this is what that would be silly. And working with Rachel House and the script and is everything, it was weirdly perfect timing. So yeah, I.
Pick up in reading about you that you actually have a love of nature that you can track back to perhaps your dad. Yes, he gave you your botanical to that name fern.
Yeah, I think that really says it all. He is. Yeah, he had definitely instilled that appreciation in me. Would he would always take us for tramps, and he would teach us the names of you know, the flora and fauna all the Latin for ripaduras is the Latin name for fantao And I will never forget that as long as I live.
Okay, remember that riper? Yeah okay. And yeah, because I remember reading something that you'd written about territory Martangi Island and the reserve out here in the in the harbor and about all the birds out there, and you obviously have a great love of nature. That does something for you.
It really does. Yeah, And we're lucky because we've got so much of it here in New Zealand. So it's I'm really grateful for my dad for introducing that to me from an early age.
Yeah, well that's cool. Hey, I'm talking with Fern Sutherland, who's one of the stars of the Broken Wood Mysteries and she's been on other programs as well, and I'll be talking more about what makes her tech and how she fuels herself, how she feels her head and heart and keeps going in this industry that she's in. And so this is real life on Newstalks. Ed B will be back with you in just a minute.
Intelligent interviews with interesting people. It's real life on news Talk ZEDB.
Welcome back to real life. I'm John Cown talking with Fern Sutherland, the star of the Almighty Johnson's and The Broken Wood Mysteries and other programs as well. And you've picked that song for us. What are we listening to?
Well, we're listening to Bonnie Rait, The One, the Only.
And why why does this one rise up in your mind when you're thinking of a song you'd like to pick.
It's just deeply nostalgic for me. I mean, apart from the fact that it's just a damn good song. I always will equate being in the sharing shed with mum and dad. My dad's sharing my mum rousing and me jumping up and down in the wool press as a three year old, and the radio was always blaring and just the sound of the hand pieces buzzing and the radio going, and it was always I don't know why, I just will. I remember Bonnie Rape and I remember the song playing a lot, and it's really happy memory for me, just in and around sheep dogs and getting up to mischief and having a great time.
Yeah, well that sounds great. And now you're an actor and you're on the screen and on the stage, and you seem so confident and poised when you're doing that. And yet I believe part of that those memories that you'd have back then are of a a Fern Sutherland that wasn't quite so poised and confident.
Yeah, I do. Mum always described me as a human sponge, and she was always quite worried about me growing up because I seemed to take on a lot of I didn't understand what was going on around me and what the adults were going through, but I definitely felt it physically, and Mum was Mum could recall times where I would just turn white and look like a ghost and just look sick with anxiety, and she was just like, what are you? What are you picking up on? And what's and there was something going on, but she just was always really surprised. You know, adult stuff, probably normal adult stuff, but for me it just seemed really intense and like I just always picked up on that stuff. So I think probably just a sensitive child.
Well, going into acting sounds like the most tortuous thing you could do to yourself.
You're absolutely right, it actually is, and it has.
Why why then would you choose to Did someone force you into it?
No? No, but I did have really bad stage fright, and I still don't enjoy being you know, quote unquote the center of attention. If I can make it about the work and kind of disappear into a character, then I enjoy it. But you know, even doing interviews like this talking about myself and being myself, I still get quite uncomfortable about. And so learning.
Acting skills actually help you.
Yeah, I think it did. I think it did. So the acting itself is the easy part for me. It's the enjoyable part. It's everything else around being an actor that's hard, you know, the having to be really tenacious and audition prove yourself time and time again, and get people to want to audition you and just hanging in there and then but then getting the job and being having to deliver that. So that's more pressure. But it's just I don't mean to complain about it, because God, I hate actors that just bang on about how hard it is and how it's really hard being an action and blah blah blah, like no one's holding a gun to my head and it's an absolute privilege, but it is not without its challenges. And one thing I find really interesting about people in high pressure, high performance vocations is that you know they are successful not because of themselves, not because of their talents and their abilities, but almost despite themselves or inspite of themselves, because they have to rise above the feeling inside them that says they can't do it and they're not good enough at the crucial moment where they have to step up and deliver.
There must have been some part of you which knew that fairly early on. Yeah, well, here's this part of me that really hates this. I'm going to head straight into the middle of it and maybe it'll help sort me out.
Yeah, But it often didn't because I would stitch myself up. I would get the yips kind of thing. And what do you mean by that? Well, I mean I would I would get nervous about something and that I'd make a mistake, and then I would make this mistake continually. But because ye, and it still happens on set sometimes where if I fluff a line and then I get my head about it because I'm like, oh, I'm not getting this word out properly, and then it becomes almost like a self fulfilling prophecy, and I really have to just kind of give myself a moment and go breathe. Just it's not about you. Don't make it about you. It's about the work. This is fun. You like this, everything's fine, and it's a real like talk yourself off the lead to moment. So it's still it still can be quite uncomfortable, but you.
Think the acting has actually given you insights into humans.
Yeah, that's the part I like about it.
By putting yourself inside other people's.
Skin, that part I love about it. It's the having to perform under pressure part that I'm less enthusiastic about.
I'm interested in the other things that help you be Fernsutherland how about Marcus Aurelius.
Yeah, I haven't read any Marcus in quite some time, and you know, because I am a big fan of Stoicism, it did get a little bit dry for me and a bit sort of joyless. Can we interpret it as quite kind of grim really? But yeah, that is a good tool. I think that I like to have just to access every now and again when I need just a really practical, simple way of getting myself through something that seems a bit convoluted and emotional.
What do you sell? What do you say to yourself?
I think it's I think it's just about not centering yourself so much in the narrative.
I think.
So His book Meditations is a really good one. Basically, I've just highlighted the entire book. But if you can create some distance between you know yourself and the thing that's happening, and realize that very little was actually about you.
Sort of stepping back from yourself and yeah, yeah, how about trying to whack someone's face with your foot? Do you find that is?
Oh, that's the best. I really recommend that. I think you're referring to the Muitai, aren't you. Yes, I don't even fetish just to like.
It's an amazing thing about you. I was reading about you. Yes, you in the winter months, you're puddling around walk with in Helensville and things filming broken with mysteries. But you've seen the rest of your year up in Thailand training like mad and tire kickboxing or tie boxing, whatever it's called. And that's ends well weird, May I say, what's it.
Doing for you? Well, I think I, despite being really interested in the human experience and psychology and emotions and all the things, when it comes to me, I find my own feelings deeply uncomfortable, and you know, fear and loneliness and any uncomfortable feeling that I'm feeling, I don't. My tendency is to not want to engage with it and probably numb myself or find crutches for things to sort of take the edge off and give me a little bit of dopamine. So weirdly, when it comes to physical pain and experiencing physical pain, I much prefer that than experiencing like emotional pain.
For example, some people would sit down with a cup of tea, but you'd rather go and work out for three hours.
Well, I don't think that I'm actually that unique in saying this, I think there's a lot of people that when they feel emotionally or mentally just overwrought or like they're having trouble processing something, they'll just go outside and or play sport, or go to the.
Gym or you know, turn it into sweat, turn it.
Yeah, which I think is a way of kind of physicalizing something that doesn't make a lot of sense in your brain. So it makes perfect sense to me why people do that.
So you're doing this hours and hours every day in tropical heat, and know you actually getting into the ring and fighting.
Well, I was, So that was definitely on the cards the last time I was there, but I had to come back early again. I came back in June because my uncle passed away and there was a bunch of stuff going on back here. But so that is on the cards and I will I will do that when I get back, just purely because it's something that i'd like to do for myself. I mean, it's another perform under pressure situation that I'll know how that's going to go. I'm really drawn to those scenarios, even though I hate them.
You do realize that a body double doesn't step in take the kick for you.
Ah, I forgot about that. Yeah. But also it is a form of meditation, I think any kind of martial art.
Okay, so it is sort of it's peaceful actually, right, so you're in there whacking and being whacked and working hard.
But it makes sense that it.
Translates into something in your head that it's interest.
Just to me is like really elegant. Just makes perfect sense to me. I don't know why. It's it's ease, but it's being ready for It's just it's everything. It's a perfect metaphor for life. I am really in articulate when I try to describe it, but in my brain it makes heaps of sense. And it's also really fun. And the culture around WHITEI is so beautiful. You know, it's not about there's not all this hype like there is with you know, you member UFC fighting and actually some boxing matches. I'm just like, oh stop, but yeah, the culture is really beautiful.
Okay. So what's it done for you? As it got you over troubles in your world or whatever? Is it? Is it something that you've turned to.
I think it does in ways that you know, traditional talking therapies and other things that are also great to do hasn't quite worked for me. And I definitely feel more in my body, which is a big one because sometimes I just feel quite disconnected. I just feel like a head that's floating around because I'm very much in my head all the time. So it's a good way of just getting out of there and.
Know does this mean the Fern Sutherland of twenty twenty four is a slightly revised version of earlier.
I really hope. So it's funny should say that because I think the last two years of my life, I could actually define that that period as being me trying to update and revise my self concept and who I think I am and the identity that I've had for myself for so long.
And that's been that sounds really positive unless you've downgraded the image.
It was only made painful by my reluctance to engage with it because it's also quite scary to go, oh, I don't actually think I like that anymore. I don't think I believe that anymore. Well, maybe I could do this or maybe I'm not that when it's scary, so but but it's also amazing. It's been great, and it's.
Been wonderful talking to you. Will go out on the song that You that You Pecked Hotel California, which I believe is played everywhere up in Thailand.
Yes, it's not my most favorite songs. In fact, I'm sure a lot of people really don't like the song, so I'm sorry everybody, but it just was really interesting to me that it was playing everywhere in Thailand as a saying that a lot of Thai people are obsessed with and they don't really know the words, but it's just a funny American song that's really popular over there for some reason.
Well, thank you for all the entertainment that you provide us on the screen, and thank you for being a great guest tonight.
Thank you, John.
This is real life on news Talk Said be looking forward to being back with you again next Sunday night. M hmm.
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