Amanda Gillies
“I tell you what, Amanda 10 years ago never in a million years would have thought Amanda today would be in a studio presenting,” says Amanda Gillies as she reflects back on the past decade.
“The last couple of years it’s taken me on a completely different path than I ever thought I would be and yeah, it’s been fun.”
As The AM Show returns, Gillies is excited about all the possibilities 2020 holds, especially with both the New Zealand and US elections on the horizon.
“It’ll be a huge year politically, both internationally and locally. We can’t wait to get our teeth sunk into that,” she says.
Politics is naturally a big topic of debate in the studio given that The AM Show host Duncan Garner is a former political editor and sports reporter Mark Richardson is “a wannabe prime minister of the future,” laughs Gillies.
“I think Mark is probably priming himself at the moment to come and save the National Party.
“I think he’ll have his phone on him at all times for the callup just in case.”
Gillies loves her role as The AM Show’s newsreader but she says she’d also like to return to her roots and do some more reporting in 2020. “Being out in the field is what I love most and it’s an environment that I kind of thrive in and I love being out and meeting the people. So if I can do a bit more of that, I’ll be one happy girl.” Although they sometimes disagree quite publicly on The AM Show, Gillies says she shares a close relationship with Garner and Richardson. “I always call them my work husbands. And like any true marriage, there are ups and downs, I think it’s fair. But we do have a lot of fun. “And even if we have some feisty situations in the studio, which can happen, we never take it out of the studio, we always just have a laugh,” she says. “It doesn't feel like work sometimes – not that I ever tell the bosses that.”