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Den, she demures. ‘‘I was so young and it was really one of my first experiences on a film set. There were also a lot of American crew on this film. Having said that, a film set is a film set is a film set wherever you are and I don’t think it fundamentally changes very much.
‘‘Of course, they were incredibly different experience, although I think there was similar magic on both films. Being involved in two films that people believed in very much has been very exciting.’’
For someone who we associate with critically acclaimed film performances (she started out as a 14-year-old on Shortland Street), it seems strange that Oceans marks her first movie role in five years. After her success as a troubled tomboy in In My Father’s Den and a showstopping, sexy turn in Suburban Mayhem (which also earned her the somewhat dubious attention of noughties lads’ mags like FHM), she became more famous for protesting against cruelty to pigs outside John Key’s electorate office in Kumeu.
Then she dropped off our radar and into the Sydney theatre scene (performing stage classics by the likes of Chekhov, Wilde and Shakespeare), before recently garnering terrific notices and a Logie nomination for her role as Sarah Hayes in the Aussie paranormal drama Glitch. A second season of that, now backed by Netflix, will shoot early next year, while Barclay has also recently completed the fourth season of dramedy Please Like Me.
However, her most immediate concern is seeing Oceans on the big screen (like here, it opens in Australia on November 3). ‘‘Yes, I haven’t seen the film yet,’’ she confesses. ‘‘I shot so much, sometimes we had seven hours of rushes at the end of the day, but I think I’m probably in the film for only two seconds.’’
Still, even if that is the case, which I assure her it isn’t, Barclay says the opportunity to come home was more than worth it.
‘‘I love working in New Zealand. The crews are incredible and the locations are always absolutely stunning.’’
The Light Between Oceans
(M) opens in New Zealand cinemas on November 3.