Role with bite: Sally Martin had to cajole her young Shorty Street co-star into being bad.
Shortland Street cast members are used to playing up, but one actor is finding it difficult to be bad. Kerry Harvey reports.
The current parenting woes of Ferndale’s Nicole Miller are nothing compared with the problems being experienced by little Feleti Aulika, who plays her on-screen son, Pele. “He really, really struggled,” says actor Sally Martin, of the challenge faced by her young co-star when Pele develops behaviour problems. The third longest-serving cast member (after Michael Galvin and Ben Mitchell), Martin – who has played Nicole for more than 10 years – is no stranger to the ups and downs of the soap world. However, the past year or so has been particularly difficult for Nicole. Her marriage ended, her baby daughter Kiri died and, in her latest round of bad luck, she becomes homeless after the hospital board decides to sell the apartment she and Pele share with her mother Leanne (played by Jennifer Ludlam). The latest disaster has led Nicole to move in with her one-time lover Dr Harper Whitley (Ria Vandervis), her husband Dr Drew McCaskill (Ben Barrington) and their baby Billy who, ironically, live in what was once Nicole’s family home. After the move, Pele starts misbehaving, breaking Drew’s prize ukulele, drawing on walls and, ultimately, being accused of biting baby Billy. Nicole refuses to believe Pele would hurt a baby – until he bites her too.
Martin says the scenes were tough for five-year-old Feleti, who has played Pele since he was three weeks old.
“He’s such a sweet boy and we had to have some extra rehearsals and read-throughs for these scenes because he’s at a stage where while he really understands what acting is and that it’s pretending, he didn’t like the idea of hurting me,” she says.
“The idea of hurting anyone was really rough for him, so I said, ‘You can do it. I’m strong and I know that we’re pretending and we’re acting and don’t you worry what you do. We’ll have a cuddle at the end of the scene’.”
Despite her reassurance, she says the bite was more like a kiss.
“He puts his lips on my arm and went, ‘Mwah’. He was just so concerned that there be any hurt or that he was being naughty.”
Martin says Feleti’s mum works closely with the little boy to ensure he understands the difference between television and real life.
“But it must be so tricky to understand even though he’s a really clever kid and a really sweet kid,” says Martin, who admits to being really protective of her young co-star.
“He’s worked 100 per cent of his life with me and his mum and his family are just amazing. He calls me Mumma Sally – that was just to get around the idea of calling someone else Mum – but now he’s at an age where he understands that people have two names when they’re at work.” Martin, who has no children of her own, says she has no problem understanding why Pele has problems, pointing out the little boy has lived through the same traumas as his mum has in the past year.
“It’s snowballed for Nicole. All these things have happened and it’s all come to a head and it’s a real reality check for Nicole, and a really heartbreaking reality check at that, to know not only that she’s not really on top of things herself but she’s got this little boy that she’s got to care for and, obviously, it’s impacted on him as well.”
Martin enlisted the help of workmates to find out how parents would react in such situations and was surprised at what she learnt.
“As a non-parent, I thought the idea of your kid hitting or kicking someone else was on the same level as a bite but it’s really not,” Martin says.
“We had a great discussion in rehearsal where we talked about it and one director said, ‘It’s actually the most horrifying thing I’ve experienced with my kids’.
“And then another director said, ‘This has happened to me’, then someone else piped up ... but because I hadn’t been through it I hadn’t realised just how horrifying a thing it is for parents – the biting thing specifically.”
“As a non-parent, I thought the idea of your kid hitting or kicking someone else was on the same level as a bite but it’s really not.” – Sally Martin pictured with Feleti Aulika (Pele)