Inspirations:

Sydney-based Kiwi actress Michelle Langstone stars in 800 Words on Wednesday nights on TVNZ1.

800 Words actress Michelle Langstone

The song that makes me want to

dance is… Ceremony by New Order, which I first heard when I was doing contemporary dance classes. Now I play that song when I want to shake my spirit out. I can’t keep still when I hear it.

My dream destination is… South Africa. I have wanted to go there since I was 11 years old, when the first big wave of emigration occurred from South Africa to New Zealand. Suddenly I had all these new friends in my class, who brought a completely different world to life in front of me. Then in my adult life I was employed by a publishing house that worked closely with the Nelson Mandela Foundation, so I have had a connection to the country through work and friendship. I was so happy to go last year to Johannesburg, Pretoria and Capetown to research a film. It’s an adaptation of a South African novel I own the rights to.

One of the most interesting places I have visited is… The Kenai Peninsula in Alaska. Everything grows ridiculously quickly in their summer of about six weeks – during that period there is 23 hours of sun a day, so plants that were at our knees when we arrived were over our head when we left three weeks later.

When I travel, I always take… A book and a decent camera. With a book I always have company and with a camera I always have memories. The film that changed my life was…

Ghostbusters. I was five years old and Dad took my sister and I to see it at the St James Cinema in Auckland. The St James in all its glory had those amazing gold lions with glowing eyes, and at the point in the movie when Sigourney Weaver went crazy and all the gargoyles came to life, those golden lions scared and thrilled me. It really put a marker in me on how transforming film can be.

The possession I most treasure is… An old battered photograph of my late grandparents and I on my seventh birthday. They were and still are tremendously important in shaping my life. I miss them terribly even though they have been gone for a long time. I take that photo with me when I am away from home for an extended period. It gives me a lot of comfort.

The quote that always motivates me is... Comparison is the thief of joy. –Theodore Roosevelt