Wellington Silver Screeners: Ana Scotney _{by Alessia Belsito-Riera}

In our Wellington Silver Screeners series, Alessia Belsito-Riera shines a spotlight on the movers and shakers working in the film capital of New Zealand. 

Acting feels as natural as breathing to Wellingtonian-turned-movie star Ana Scotney (Ngāti Tāwhaki, Ngāi Tūhoe). A tour de force in Aotearoa’s film industry, she burst onto the world’s screens in 2018 as Sepa in Jackie van Beek and Madeleine Sami’s acclaimed comedy The Breaker Upperers. Since then she has embodied characters in Cousins, Bad Behaviour, improv-based TV comedy The Educators, and Pōneke-produced feature Millie Lies Low to name but a few. The powerhouse performer has meticulously crafted two solo theatre shows, Waiporoporo and ScatterGun: After the Death of Rūaumoko, and is currently one of 10 emerging directors chosen to participate in Dame Jane Campion’s groundbreaking pop-up film school A Wave in the Ocean, where she hopes to further hone her voice and style as a writer, director, and filmmaker.

What’s more? Ana makes music under the name Kōtiro and has an award-winning podcast about people living under the criminal justice system called True Justice. It’s safe to say that her branches are stretching out across Aotearoa’s arts scene and beyond. There is no uprooting her, so sit back and watch her bloom. Read all about what inspires, drives, and nourishes her below!

What drew you to acting and storytelling?

When I was about 13, my drama teacher at high school, Bolke Water, told me that acting was something I could work towards being really good at. It meant a lot to me, for him to see that potential. I have also always loved to perform on stage in a company, like a team sport. I have also always loved to read. Combining these storytelling modalities, to me, is the core of why I love performance both for stage and screen. Personifying text and giving it dimension in a collaborative fashion is a lot of hard work and a lot of fun. I love it from the bottom of my heart, so it felt natural to continue doing this, purely because it’s sort of all I’ve ever done – bar for a brief stint being a telemarketer when I finished high school. It feels like it’s a part of me, natural like breathing.

Have you always wanted to act?

I’ve always wanted to make art and tell stories with my friends and the people I respect and love, and to express my love of our culture, our whenua, and of whakapapa as a Māori storyteller. In my original work, that desire to tell stories that could only come from Aotearoa sits at the core of what I do.

But with acting specifically. Yeah! I love acting so much.

I think it’s important to say too, that making theatre and film can be hard going on the body. Film requires a lot of patience, trust, vulnerability, and feeling comfortable with being out of your comfort zone a lot of the time. Staying mentally and emotionally well is a top priority, and that can be a test when you’re tired or you’re working with material that is emotionally gnarly. You might be shooting away from home or pulling big hours shooting at night for weeks or months, through cold conditions. You might be cast on the spot to appear in some big film and have to immediately uproot, travel to where you’re shooting, preparing and learning the material on the fly. Equally, you might have the good fortune of working at home with old friends who you’ve grown up with, or built that friendship with, over years of collaboration. All of this to say, in a round-about fashion, acting is a dynamic, unpredictable, and literally life-changing job. It is so much fun, and it’s a privilege to be in service of storytelling, but it’s not always as glamorous as it may appear! 

Can you tell me a bit about how you got started?

Sure. I auditioned for an awesome youth theatre company when I was 16 called Long Cloud Youth Theatre. I began training to devise theatre then. I went to Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School and was cast in my first professional play with Auckland Theatre Company just before graduating. Whilst on my lunch break in rehearsals for Peer Gynt [recycled] – the play I was working on – I auditioned for a film called The Breaker Upperers, and that was the beginning really.

How did you get into film acting? What was that process like?

When I was at drama school, a visiting tutor told me that she didn’t know if I was cut out to act on screen, so I thought that my trajectory would be more in making experimental theatre and performance art. As above, I auditioned for The Breaker Upperers, and from there, the rest is history.

Well, you have an impressive list of credits to your name now! What has been your favourite project so far and why?

Thanks! I’ve loved all of the projects I have been a part of. Cousins was really significant to me, and truly meant the world to be a part of.

What are you currently up to and what’s next?

I’m staging my show ScatterGun: After the Death of Rūaumoko with Silo Theatre. What’s next is still yet to be deciphered and determined.

Can you tell me a little bit about Millie Lies Low?

Millie Lies Low is a rite-of-passage film about a confused and anxious 20-something, lying low in Wellington when her community thinks she’s living it up on an architecture scholarship in New York.

What was special about that project?

The fact that we made it deep inside the pandemic. That it even got made is special. Miraculous even. Working with Michelle Savill, who is now one of my dearest friends, who directed and co-wrote the script with Eli Kent, and working with Desray Armstrong, who produced it.

What was the experience like of filming in your hometown for Millie Lies Low?

Intense, fast and furious, creatively fulfilling, and hearty. We shot that film in the middle of winter between the first wave of COVID and Omicron. So my experience of that shoot and its release will always be synonymous with COVID. What a wild time!

As a Wellingtonian, how do you find working in the capital’s film industry?

Truthfully, I don’t know if I think of myself as being fixed in Wellington’s film industry specifically, because I work in Auckland lots, and live in Auckland lots, and I work with filmmakers who are based here in Aotearoa, and around the world, and I have been privileged enough to shoot and present work outside of Wellington for a lot of my career so far. 

So, these days, I think of Wellington as my home. Never so much an industry, so this is interesting.

For me, it’s more about going to Oruaiti Reserve at Breaker Bay and turning over the genesis of a story idea in my head, looking out at Raukawa Moana, thinking about the best way of weaving ideas together. Or it’s whilst swimming around Tapu Te Ranga, the little island in Island Bay, dreaming about how I’ll approach a certain scene, in performance. You know. That sorta feel, shooting front of mind.

I think of Te Whanganui-a-Tara as the place where I’ve grown up, where I’ve learned how to do this thing I love – how to act in and how to direct cinema. It’s been my teacher, and it’s been the place where my teachers hail from, and where they cut their teeth doing this thing too.

I’ve been training to direct film under the mentorship of Dame Jane Campion and Philippa Campbell through A Wave in the Ocean, and before that with Dame Gaylene Preston through the NZ Arts Foundation. I am so inspired when I consider the whakapapa of film in Pōneke.

What advice would you give a Wellington-based actor trying to break into film?

Don’t take advice from me! Use whatever resources you’ve got around you to express what is inside you, ideologically, creatively. Trust yourself. Take the risks. Do it.