Keeping Santa on track
A Nelson boy has secured one of the lead roles in a new Kiwi movie.
Nelson Intermediate student Samuel Clark, 12, is playing the character Sam in Kiwi Christmas.
The movie follows Santa, who heads to New Zealand for a holiday when he gets fed up with the materialism of Christmas.
When two Kiwi kids called Sam and Molly (Luca Andrews), figure out who he is, they have to find a way to get him back to the North Pole in time for Christmas.
Sam’s drama teacher at school suggested he audition for the role.
After a few auditions in Auckland, he was phoned in Nelson with the good news he had got the role.
Sam said he and his mother and father did a little victory dance out of excitement. ‘‘This was the first audition I had ever done. It was a little strange, it just came out of the blue.’’
The movie was shot at the beginning of this year at Te Muri Bay in Mahurangi, north of Auckland.
‘‘It was pretty remote, there was a big gravel road to get there,’’ Sam said.
‘‘It was really beautiful and an amazing beach.’’
Sam took the first term off school while they were shooting.
‘‘I was shooting most of the days, there was a lot of waiting around.
‘‘There was lots of school work to do, I had to do two hours a day to keep up with it.’’
Sam said he loved acting and being on camera, but he liked working together with the rest of the crew the most.
‘‘There was a lot of downtime, it was really chill and there were loads of people to talk to, lots of games to play.’’
Sam said he was looking forward to doing more auditions and keeping up with his acting.
‘‘I’ve been doing drama since I was little and I liked it just as a little hobby. I never knew it would be turned into something like this.’’
Sam said he would love to do another movie, or a TV show, or advertisement.
‘‘I can’t wait to see what other roles there are and just see what I can do.’’
Written by Andrew Gunn, Tony Simpson and Dave Armstrong, Kiwi Christmas is produced by double BAFTA-award winner Tim Sanders (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring).
The film also stars Finnish actor Kari Vaananen as Santa, and Sia Trokenheim and Xavier Horan play Sam’s parents.
❚ After previews in select cinemas this weekend, Kiwi Christmas (PG) will be released nationwide on November 30.
"I was shooting most of the days, there was a lot of waiting around. There was lots of school work to do, I had to do two hours a day to keep up with it." Samuel Clark