Robyn Malcom “utterly gobsmacked” by After the Party’s BAFTA nomination
The Kiwi actor was in a Liverpool cafe when she found out the drama series was in the running for a BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) award for Best International Show.
After the Party - a six-part drama series about a woman whose world implodes when she accuses her ex-husband of a sex crime - is up for Best International TV Series at the BAFTA Awards on 28 April.
While its lead actor Robyn Malcom is very proud of the show, she tells Morning Report's Charlotte Cook it was a pleasant shock to discover it had made the list.
Since then, she's been thinking back to the nine-week shoot in Wellington where an “incredible” crew worked hard to pull off something really special.
“You know what it's like in New Zealand, you do things on the smell of an oily rag, number eight wire, all the cliches. Everybody throws themselves into it very, very quickly because there's never enough time.”
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Malcolm says it “blows her mind” how far the NZ-made show has travelled around the world - people in Liverpool come up to her in the supermarket to praise it just as they do in Auckland.
After The Party struck a chord for two reasons, she thinks - people were gripped by the classic ‘Did he do it?’ aspect and also the characters’ emotional depth and flaws made them credible.
“[Viewers] really care about the characters, they're invested in them, so what happens in the story really matters.”
“Utterly crazy, mindblowing and just plain joyous" was how she described the nomination in an Instagram post.
"Am wandering about Liverpool in a daze thinking about all our ATP crew who worked like maniacs, rain wind and shine over those weeks back in Te Whanganui a Tara Aotearoa (Wellington New Zealand).
"Lads this is a testament to all our work together. I’m f’ing proud of all of us. We are in a seriously classy category with seriously classy competition."
After the Party was produced by Lingo Pictures and Luminous Beast and written by Dianne Taylor, along with Emily Perkins, Martha Hardy-Ward and Sam Shore.
Taylor told RNZ's Saturday Morning that she and Malcolm created the show partly out of frustration about the lack of decent roles for middle-aged women.
After the Party took home a record haul at last year’s NZ Television Awards.
At the BAFTA Awards on 28 April, it will be up against the Australian comedy Colin from Accounts, the Irish drama Say Nothing, the American drama True Detective: Night Country, and the Japanese drama Shogun, which stars New Zealand-born Japanese actress Anna Sawai.
