KANOA LLOYD:
Her early years were spent living in a house truck with hippie parents. Now a prime-time TV star, Kanoa Lloyd talks about the moment she came close to tears onscreen, her nomadic childhood and why she’s determined not to obsess about her weight – or the c
Judy Bailey meets the rising star of prime-time TV
Kanoa Lloyd has made the leap from being a weather presenter on TV3’s news-hour to co-anchor of the channel’s primetime offering, The Project, with seemingly effortless ease.
She is thoughtful, sassy, articulate and warm. In an industry of big egos, she is a breath of fresh air and one of the brightest stars to grace the small screen in a long time. But, perhaps most importantly, she is not afraid to be vulnerable.
In the wake of Metiria Turei’s admission of benefit fraud last August, Kanoa leapt to the defence of beneficiaries in an emotionally charged opinion piece on The Project.
“I think there’s a certain part of the population, when the benefit pops up in the news, that likes to shame and dismiss people who have been in the welfare system as ‘cheaters’ or ‘liars’, or a certain kind of person, a stranger,” she told Project viewers. “But they’re not. They’re politicians. They’re artists. They’re television presenters.
“My family, we benefited from the welfare system growing up. And I would not be in this position now if we hadn’t had that help. People need help, and they need support. And they do not need to be shamed or judged because, believe me, that shame and judgement is built into that system just fine. So keep your negative comments to yourself.”
She was close to tears. Obviously her words were deeply felt. “I gave myself a bit of a fright at how upset I felt,” she admits now. “I don’t think I realised the internalised shame and judgement that I’d put on myself being in that situation. It was important for me to do it [to speak up].
“I hesitate to say, ‘Look I’ve been
there.’ I don’t want to denigrate people, but I do want to reach out to people and let them know that the limitations you’re experiencing at the moment don’t have to be the way things are for ever.”
It is typical of Kanoa to fearlessly say what she thinks, and she credits The Project’s producer, Jon Bridges, with creating an environment that allows her to feel safe enough to do so. The show’s team genuinely like each other and the entire team collaborates on each programme.
What is it, I wonder, about the mix of front-people on The Project that makes them so successful? Kanoa ponders this for a moment and then tells me, “I think the fact that our very first promotion for the show involved us all singing and dancing… that’s one of the most vulnerable and embarrassing things you can be asked to do. We only had a couple of days to learn the choreography and the song so I think that pushed fast-forward on our friendship.”
It’s an unlikely combo. “We’re all different. Jesse [Mulligan] is focused and intelligent, thinking into the future and problem-solving; Josh [Thomson] is warm, hilarious, disorganised and unexpected; and, I suppose,” she says modestly, “I come somewhere in the middle.”
Kanoa was born 31 years ago in Gisborne to Diane Lloyd and Tau Pakaua. Her mum was a Southland girl, one of six born in Mataura. She’d just graduated with a BA when she met Tau, Ngati Porou, from Ruatoria, at a party on the Coromandel. The pair became your quintessential 1980s hippies, living in a house truck and moving from place to place as the mood and available work took them. At one stage the family wound up living and working with legendary Coromandel potter Barry Brickell, with Tau helping him on his famous Driving Creek Railway. “It was not unusual for them to roll up to someone’s place and knock on the door,” says Kanoa.
“There was no power and no water,” she remembers of life in the house truck, but it was a life full of rich experiences. “I grew up surrounded by creative, artistic people and I still feel a real pull to the Coromandel. I can’t believe how beautiful it is, like it’s from another world.”
Her sister, Ruby, came along when Kanoa was two. The inevitable pressures of living in confined quarters began to take their toll. “It was hard because they [Diane and
Tau] fought a lot.” Tau was also struggling with addictions.
The family eventually moved to Dunedin so they could be closer to Diane’s parents. Diane and Tau split when Kanoa was four. “It’s hard for me to line things up; I guess that’s normal for someone who’s experienced trauma and heartache,” she explains. “It was a tricky time. How much can a fouryear-old understand? I do remember having quite adult conversations with family… and overhearing lots of whispered chats. It’s easy to think kids won’t get it, but they do.”
Diane took her daughters to live with her parents in Cromwell. She did part-time work, put herself through a horticulture course and worked as a gardener, determined that her girls would have a home to call their own. She eventually headed back to school and completed nursing training. She’s currently nursing in Alexandra.
Tau, meanwhile, faced his demons and put himself through rehab. He is now a counsellor, specialising in
Maori mental health and addiction.
Kanoa credits her parents with teaching her to be independent.
“Jesse is focused and intelligent; Josh is warm, hilarious and disorganised; and, I suppose, I come in the middle.”
“I get my ‘do it yourself’ attitude from Mum. If no one else is going to do it, I’ll bloody well do it,” she grins. Her parents also imparted a love of creativity and taught their daughter the value of nurturing others.
She says her own values are to “work hard, to not upset anybody and to keep putting as much energy into friendships and personal life as work”.
In broadcasting in particular, she says, there’s an intense pressure to focus on work. She admires her colleagues who hold down jobs at both ends of the day, but she wants to prioritise her personal life.
Kanoa is married to Mikee Carpinter, a director and colourist working in television. They’ve been together for six years. As we speak, he is putting the finishing touches to Three’s latest series of commercials. While Kanoa likes nothing better than roaming about outdoors, “the most outdoors he gets is a game of cricket on a manicured pitch,” she laughs. They love to create games together. “It was part of our wedding vows, that we would always play together and go on adventures. He brings out the kid in me in a really cool way.” Her face lights up as she tells me this.
Off screen, because she moved around a lot as a child, she relishes time at home. “I’ve worked hard to create my own stability. The trouble with maturing early is I’ve become incredibly boring,” she smiles. “I love cooking, walking the dog, gardening.” She can often be found trawling through the nearby Avondale Markets at weekends looking for fresh fruit and veg. Her cooking, she says, is all about fresh. She’s not one of your vegan, paleo, dairy-free types. “I’m not afraid of butter and cream and a big hunk of meat!”
The pair live with their much-loved “lucky dip” dog, Brown. He’s of mixed parentage – part ridgeback, part Staffordshire. “He’s a big brown bundle of joy.” Brown understands Maori and English.
While Kanoa doesn’t claim to be fluent in te reo, she tries to incorporate it into her daily life and encourages Mikee to do the same. “So he talks to Brown in Maori. A dog won’t judge,” she grins. As she’s grown older, Kanoa’s Maori side has become increasingly important to her. “I feel inextricably linked to those things, the outdoors, manaakitanga [showing kindness and hospitality], and whakawhanaungatanga [friendships].”
It was back in Dunedin while she
“I’ve worked hard to create my own stability. The trouble with maturing early is I’ve become incredibly boring.”
was growing up that she really connected to Te Ao Maori – the Maori way. “Dad took me to lots of hui as part of his work. He also worked at a halfway house and he’d arrive home with a vanload of people who would work around the garden, cutting the hedges, cleaning out the chook house. He wanted us to assume that people with tattoos or those who looked intimidating were just people, and he wanted them to experience a loving, normal family.” His daughters would spend many a Friday night at singalongs at the Otakou marae on the Otago Peninsula. “It was really helpful for us.”
Kanoa was a keen student who “liked the teachers’ seal of approval”. It was at school that she first developed a love of performing. “I was always a bit of a show-off,” she grins, “an attention seeker.” She was also a voracious reader from an early age. “I would dictate stories to my babysitters. I remember at seven or eight saying I’d be an author when I grew up and have a little cottage somewhere.” She especially devoured New Zealand writers and remembers writing letters to Margaret Mahy and Joy Cowley. They would write back. “Books were a little bubble I could be in when things were a bit unhappy.”
You could be forgiven for thinking that Kanoa is supremely confident. She looks so comfortable in her own skin but, like many performers, she admits to being “socially awkward and insecure”. She credits her first job in children’s television as giving her the skill to look confident even if she isn’t. “I started in television when I was 16. In children’s television you have to be ‘out there’ all the time. It’s a skill I’m really grateful for. I still get enormously anxious, especially when I’m interviewing film and television people and politicians… it makes my heart flutter.”
Kanoa says she’s not goal driven. “I dream about things. They always seem to manifest. Ten years ago I thought, ‘Imagine if I could be in the newsroom.’” Fast-forward a decade and here is she is. And she’s having a ball. “I get to work with people I grew up admiring, people like comedians Dai Henwood and
Jaquie Brown. The 20-year-old me would never have believed it.”
Of course with a leading role in primetime television comes the inevitable pressure of social media. She has a healthy scepticism about it. “The social media world is not the real world. In the last year I’ve had to take a big step back from it and get perspective and understand that the opinions people share online are quite different to those they share in real life. It’s very hard when something is in your hand [on a phone], to not to be affected [by negative comments]. I often used to sass back but now I tend to ignore it.”
She once responded to an online comment “Why do they keep dressing you like an old lady?” with “Kanoa dresses herself and she loves this dress. Maybe Kanoa is an old lady at heart? Maybe that’s okay?” (For the record, my fashion-savvy six-year-old granddaughter asked me to tell Kanoa, “I love your hair and your clothes.”)
“Traditionally, one of the biggest expectations on women in media is that they should look a certain way. But I think I’m coming up at a time where that matters less and less. I don’t obsess about my weight or my frown-lines – much… I am still a human being! – and even if the odd negative comment does get under my skin (No, I’m not pregnant, I just like sandwiches quite a lot), I’ve got incredible friends and mentors who I can laugh about it with.”
Kanoa is philosophical about the notoriously fickle media world. There are no guarantees of longevity. “I’d love to keep doing what I’m doing for a long time, but I’m realistic about the changing media landscape.” When change comes, she says, “Something will bubble up to the surface… it always does.”
“Even if the odd negative comment does get under my skin, I’ve got friends and mentors who I can laugh about it with.”