Less drama, more honesty
“I wish I could look out into the world and find a place that I fit.” Amanda Billing pauses wistfully for a moment and then smiles her beautiful broad smile and says, “I think it probably exists and I’m in it!”
These thoughts are, as she would say, “classic Amanda Billing”. She is one of our most successful actors. A teacher and former star of the long-running TV soap, Shortland Street, she has also held lead roles in heavyweight theatrical productions like Lysistrata and Macbeth.
She finds herself now at a crossroads, in between gigs. “I feel like I’m at a place I’ve been before. What happens next? It’s forcing me to be more creative and think what I really want to do in a deep way.”
We meet in her tiny central city apartment which happily overlooks an equally tiny but beautiful, leafy park. It feels like an oasis from the bustle outside. late last year – a simple white T-shirt with black lettering that read, “Strong Female Character”. Her mother, acting legend Miranda Harcourt, thought it was perfect for Thomasin. “To play a strong female character is what actresses aim for. Strong does not exclude being vulnerable or troubled, it just means that you lead the narrative and that is something women are aiming for in drama as well as politics.”
