A different kind of Carla

Actress Elisabeth Easther returns to Shortland Street 25 years after her character bashed her hubby to death with a candlestick. Kerry Harvey reports.

Aquarter of a century after she was carted away by men in white coats, Ferndale’s first murderer Carla Crozier-Leach is back.

Somehow the psychotic killer has reinvented herself as Dr Carla Summerfield, the therapist Shortland Street’s head of nursing Nicole Miller (Sally Martin) turns to for help when her relationship with mum Leanne (Jennifer Ludlam) breaks down.

Actress Elisabeth Easther, who played Carla from May 1995 to July 1996, can’t quite believe she is back playing the character that made her a household name in New Zealand.

“I turned 50 this year and it’s literally half my life ago. I don’t feel like that much time has passed and every time I’m reminded it’s 25 years, it just boggles my mind.

“How did that happen?” she asks. “I’m thinking if they don’t kill me this time I might come back when I’m 75.”

Easther, who these days is an award-winning playwright and a journalist, was in two minds when she was told Shortland Street wanted to bring Carla back.

“My agent asked me, ‘If Shortland Street wanted you back what would you say?’ and I said, ‘I really like my life at the moment. It’s quite pleasant. I just live in leisure wear; play tennis when it pleases me. I don’t even know if I want to go back’,” she says.

“Then, I thought about it and thought, ‘You know what, it could be fun’. It’s a short-term contract, I don’t act that often now because I mainly do writing and it just felt like it was an opportunity to be playful and also to work with real people because I work at home most of the time.

“The novelty of a whole gang of people to chat with – make-up people, costume people, art people – it’s a bit like a party.”

Easther was not long out of drama school Toi Whakaari when she was cast as Carla who, overcome with jealousy, set out to ruin the career of her sister Ellen (Robyn Malcolm). She didn’t stop there.

It was Carla’s actions that led to the death of new mum Carmen (Theresa Healey) and she also killed her husband Bernie (Timothy Bartlett) by bashing him on the head with a candlestick after he discovered she had faked both a pregnancy and a miscarriage.

“I’ve always thought she had reasonable reasons (to do what she did). You’ve got to as an actor. You’ve got to have some kind of basis of humanity in your choices,” Easther says.

“I like to think she really does want to do good things, but there is always that little bit of Carla that can’t quite keep her grip on the good part.”

While Easther is tight-lipped on whether Carla is now reformed, she says the character, despite now being a therapist, hasn’t lost her ability to shock.

“She’s quite big on the home truths and sometimes I’m thinking it’s pretty rough to say things like this, but then one of the writers said she’s telling people things they actually need to hear,” the actress says. “She doesn’t beat around the bush.”

Easther has, in some ways, paid a price for creating such a memorable character 25 years ago.

Television roles were few and far between until more than a decade later when she was cast on

Outrageous Fortune, followed by stints on Power Rangers Jungle Fury, Burying Brian and The Jaquie Brown Diaries.

“Once upon a time I might have blamed Carla but now I think it just might have been that I wasn’t right for the jobs that were around,” she says. Ever resourceful, she found other ways of telling stories – working in radio, travelling and writing.

“I believe that Shortland Street will open doors and close doors and it’s hard to know perhaps which ones close, but there are certainly things that are offered that might not be otherwise.

“I got an op-ed column in the NZ Herald which I wouldn’t have got if it hadn’t been for Shortland Street,” she says.

Easther added documentary making to her resume with 2018’s ratings hit Islands Of The Gulf in which she travelled around the Hauraki Gulf following in the footsteps of her mother – pioneering broadcaster Shirley Maddock. She is keen to do more.

“I’d love to make one about DOC rangers or birds of New Zealand – something in that similar natural history department,” Easther says.

“My favourite thing is people. They tell neat stories and they share their hearts with you and you feel really honoured by that.

“To have a job where you get to talk to lovely people is actually one of the best things and there is an endless supply of people.”

“I’ve always thought she had reasonable reasons (for what she did).” – Elisabeth Easther as young Carla (above)