PRODUCER CHRIS HAMPSON ON HOPE & WIRE

“HOPE & WIRE deals with the lives of three discrete groups of Christchurch people during the earthquakes, and it concerns that period from September 2010 to April-May 2011. It’s deliberately not about the earthquakes as such: there’s already been enough of that on TV. It’s not meant to be a recreation of the earthquakes – rather it’s about the lives of three different groups of people and what happens to them under such stress. It’s an unusually extreme opportunity to not just make up what might have happened – but to actually see it as recent history. Because what happens to these characters is what has actually happened to some of the people in Christchurch.

“Although Gaylene has researched the stories of real people, the characters she has created come out of her past, some from elements of her family. There’s a real South Island spirit woven through the characters. Her family comes from the West Coast and she’s used them as vehicles to carry real stories.”

“I hope the audience will laugh and cry but also I hope the audience looks at Christchurch and remembers the enormity of what happened there and remember that it’s filled with their fellow New Zealanders going through a remarkable trauma: and that it’s an ongoing trauma that will continue for many years.”

Bernard Hill plays Len, who, having arrived in Lyttelton in 1976 and played his part as a union advocate, is now a bored welfare beneficiary who has found a late-in-life love with his darling Joycie. He’s a curmudgeon with opinions on everything, which he shares from the couch.

In HOPE & WIRE, Rachel House plays Joycie, a caregiver who lives with her soul mate, Len, in a big old house that becomes “The Free State of Muntville” after the first earthquake. Joycie is the heart of the series, the den mother who cares for everyone, with her motto: “keep calm and carry on.”

Of Ngai Tahu and Ngati Mutunga descent, Rachel House is an award-winning director and actor in New Zealand theatre who continues to make a significant contribution to the rise of Maori Theatre. She was recently Artistic Director of Toroihi raua ko Kahiri, The Maori Troilus and Cressida, which was performed in the NZ International Arts Festival and in London’s Globe Theatre’s Globe to Globe Festival.

Her film roles include Whale Rider and Eagle versus Shark. In the highly acclaimed Boy, she played Auntie Gracie and was acting coach for the child actors. She plays Maraea in the internationally respected White Lies.

In 2008 she attended the Prague film school and was awarded Best Director for her short film Bravo and the Audience Award for another short, New Skirt. In 2010 she directed a short film The Winter Boy, which has been selected in many international film festivals. Rachel House received an Arts Foundation Laureate Award in 2012.

“I was very drawn to Joycie and Len’s predicament and the world they create in order to survive. Joycie’s perspective is very interesting: she keeps saying throughout the series ‘I’ve been to hell and back and I’m not letting any old earthquake get me’. When this interviewer comes along and asks she’s been, she says ‘well, actually we’ve really sorted ourselves out. We’re both a lot healthier. We got off the couch, we stopped watching television and our lives have improved.’ “I know that Gaylene has researched all these people thoroughly and there’s a very truthful perspective in those characters. It’s great writing with great characters. The series has a big, big heart.”

“There is the view that Joycie is the heart of the series, but for me it’s actually the spirit of survival which is the heart of the series and in that case it’s all of the characters because they’ve all survived. I think Joycie is a wonderful person and she steps up to the camp mother role very easily She’s a care-giver and -I mean you only have to look at her to see that she cares for everybody else but not really herself. I’ve had a fair bit to do with care-givers because I’ve got elderly parents and they are just the heroes, their life is about looking after other people. And so I feel very proud to represent that aspect of Joycie.”
“This series is an opportunity to show what has actually gone on for the people living in Christchurch, how they’ve had to deal with it and how it has affected their lives. It’s still going on and will continue to go on for years and years, no doubt.”
“It was quite an honour to film it in Christchurch and what I've been really moved by is how many people are ready to tell their stories. We were surrounded by the people who it really happened to and there was no avoiding it. You’d go to the supermarket or a shop or to a party and people would tell you their story. It felt like it was a very, very intense time and there seems to be a great sense of community down there which I really enjoyed.”

“Bernard and I did a scene with the student boys and we got the actual newspaper that came out the day after the February 22 earthquake. It was just mind-blowing when we opened it. For starters, one of the actors playing a student was on the front page. He said ‘that’s me’ and another one said ‘that’s my teacher.’ I know Bernard was deeply affected by that. It was just page after page of details. It was extraordinary and it felt like we were kind of re-living it.”

“Prior to the earthquake, Ryan was a young professional trying to establish himself, to get his own little piece of the pie. He was with the love of his life, Donna, and his two little girls and was happy. He describes them as ‘just your average kiwi family.’ He was on his way to living his dream - having his own patch of grass, his own home, and his business.”

“I’m a typical Aucklander in that all I knew about the earthquakes was what I’d seen in the media and I had no real idea of the magnitude of what Christchurch people went through. So when I heard that this project was coming up, like every actor, I thought ‘oh, I’ll just go along to the audition’. So then I got the job and read the scripts and I started to understand what people had gone through and I really wanted to be a part of it.”

“She is everything in a director. I’ve never met anyone who is so passionate about film-making and every aspect of it. I’ve worked with people who understand the visual side, the technical side, the pictures, or the performance side, the acting. But I’ve never worked with a director who’s interested in what the frame looks like, what the actor looks like, how the sound works, how many people there are in the background, how bright the light is, what colour the water is. I’ve never worked with someone that passionate about what the picture is actually saying. She’s very thorough. In that way it feels like you’re working with a genius.”

“I got to spend a bit of time on a digger. Driving it was amazing. I was nervous at the start. There were some technical moves that only an experienced driver could do, so there was a stunt driver, but I tried to do as much as possible. I really enjoyed driving the massive digger. There’s something exciting about having a machine that weighs two tonnes and you have control of it. Boys with their toys, I guess.”

“The physical thing of going into the liquefaction was just so intense. I just can’t imagine how that would be in real life. They dug a hole and we had to shoot the bit where I slip in and then shoot the bit when I’m right in it in a separate shot. I had to go under and it was cold, muddy water. It was not like being a spa pool. It was cold, dirty water and every time I got out it was really cold and it was disgusting. Jarod called it the pit of eternal despair.”

“I loved the chance to work with Gaylene. From the minute I met her, I thought ‘Oh, I feel really comfortable with her. She feels like a theatre director’. It felt like she’s the kind of director that wants you to try stuff out and figure it out as you go. She’s a real collaborator. She has a very strong vision about what she wants, but she doesn’t know the answer when you start a scene, which I love.”