RIMA AND ROBYN:
their fast-track friendship and the truth about menopause
It’s hard to get a word in edgeways when these much-loved Kiwi actors get together. They chat to Nicky Pellegrino about the movie project that fast-tracked their friendship, the reality of menopause, the heartbreak of losing a parent and how in their 50s they finally feel relaxed about how they look.
There seems no doubt that Robyn Malcolm and Rima Te Wiata were meant to be friends; the two have so much in common. They even like to smell the same (of the now discontinued Commes des Garçons fragrance Daphne), they share a love of beautiful lingerie (and wear it for their own pleasure rather than a man’s) and they were born two years apart on the same day, March 15, making them Pisces, if you believe in astrology, which they do. Oh and, of course, they have the same job.
“We’re both wussy actors and we cry a lot,” says Robyn.
At one point, years ago in their 20s, they also had the same taste in men, which led to an awkward first meeting, after Rima fell for a guy who had broken Robyn’s heart.
“I didn’t even know Robyn at that point but she came over and knocked on the door,” recalls Rima. “She said she’d heard who I was going out with and told me to be careful. I was really polite, but didn’t ask her in. Actually I thought, ‘Who does she think she is?’”
“Did I do that? I don’t remember. What a nosy minx!’ Robyn is laughing. “I must have been traumatised.”
“I think you were genuinely trying to protect me,” says Rima. “And of course you were right because then he moved on and I felt the same.”
Several decades have passed since then and, while they have seen each other perform in theatre productions and TV shows, Robyn and Rima haven’t ever worked together until now. They are making up for lost time. At their Australian Women’s Weekly photo shoot I didn’t so much interview the two women as record a part of the conversation that has been going on between them since they came together in a Hawke’s Bay homestead, with cast and crew, to make actor/director David White’s upcoming quirky comic movie This Town.
Since Rima and Robyn are smart, funny, strong, informed women, it is a wide-ranging, colourful conversation that covers everything from body image to politics, to the ups and downs of acting, to personal sadness and joy, to the menopause symptoms no one ever tells you about.
Brain zaps
“Menopause… don’t start me!” cries Robyn. “The thing is, because women in previous generations never really talked about it, all I expected was a few hot flushes. I wasn’t prepared for all the other things.”
Such as the brain zaps? “Like having sparks in my head,” remembers Rima. “Or little whizzing sparkler feelings. I didn’t have any sweating, everything else was fine, just this weird electrical activity.”
“Everyone’s experience is different,” observes Robyn. “I was pretty crippled by it for 18 months. My whole world shifted. I was psycho with massive mood swings, crying and anxious; I still have a bit of that. But I love the fact that women are talking about it now. I tell everybody, all the time. It impacts my life every day so I’m not going to pretend it’s not happening.”
Robyn is about to turn 55, while Rima is almost 57. The advantage of being character actors with versatile skills is that neither has had to deal with their work drying up as their faces have lined and their bodies have changed. Now marking 40 years in the business, Rima is as busy as ever – she is just back from shooting the lead role of a film called The Tender Trap in Argentina. And Robyn’s career has increasingly taken her overseas since the end of TV3 comedy drama
Outrageous Fortune, in which she played the iconic role of matriarch Cheryl West.
Being busy is good. It pays the bills and they love their job. But the gypsy lifestyle it involves, with periods of intense work and time for little else, takes a toll, particularly as, like most women, they are juggling other responsibilities.
Rima has been through a particularly tough time, dealing with her mother’s decline into dementia. Actress Beryl Te Wiata died in 2017 and while Rima is now at peace with her mother’s loss, there have been so many practicalities to deal with – making sure she had the care she needed towards the end, selling her house, deciding which of her belongings to keep and what to let go.
“It’s been horrendous and it’s been going on for about eight years,” says Rima. “I may sound bright and perky, and like I can handle it, but lately I’ve been exhausted, crashing out and sleeping for 16 hours when I’ve had the chance.”
“I love the fact that women are talking about menopause now. I tell everybody, all the time.”
Parenting by Skype
Family responsibilities are also a tug on Robyn, who is a single mum to sons Charlie, 16, and Pete, 14.
Last year she spent a lot of time commuting between Auckland, Brisbane and Serbia (where she was filming American fantasy adventure series The Outpost). That has been chaotic at times, and meant homework and parenting done via Skype.
“I’m away a lot and it used to worry me but you muddle through and they’ve known this lifestyle since they were born, so they get it,” she says. “Also I’ve got two nannies that are fantastic humans. When I go away they move into my house and the kids adore them. They laugh a lot and they’re brilliant; I couldn’t be more lucky.”
There have been moments over the years when Robyn has wanted nothing more than to be with her sons. Like the time she was in Melbourne, shooting a scene for the TV show Upper Middle Bogan
when she got a call from her sister to say Charlie had fallen off a wall at school and knocked out a front tooth.
“I burst out crying because I felt so far away, so awful and guilty,” recalls Robyn. “But then I had to remember that this is how I keep us alive and functioning, and it is also what keeps me happy.”
Now in full teenager mode,
Charlie and Pete aren’t particularly impressed by their mother’s fame or career. “They’re at that age where I’m really not cool, I’m a dick and I’m embarrassing,” admits Robyn.
“But getting that Queen’s Birthday Honour last year [she was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit], they were really proud and it was great.”
Rima had already been awarded the same honour – she was named as part of the New Year list back in 2017. When you start being recognised for services to your industry it seems like a sign of seniority, and of having a lot of life to look back on.
“My feeling is the older we get, the more interesting our stories are,” says Robyn. “We’ve been through a few relationships, we’ve made a few mistakes, we’ve fallen over and we’ve got back up again.”
Letting go
Robyn has a photograph on her phone of herself as a younger actress. She was beautiful, but also insecure, battling issues around food and her body, worried she wasn’t good enough. More recent photos on her phone show how far she has come. If you follow Robyn on Instagram you may have seen the selfies she loves to post – there is a particularly hilarious one of her with Rima. Rather than going for the usual flattering angle, holding the phone above her head, Robyn takes shots from very low down, so what you get is a lot of chins and there are absolutely no flattering filters. Those selfies are a sign of a woman who likes to laugh at herself and is letting go of self-doubt.
“I notice less bad shit about myself in general than when I was 25,” says Robyn. “I was much more paranoid then. I look back now and wonder why didn’t I appreciate myself more.”
Today Robyn is secure enough to have posed in her underwear for her favourite lingerie brand, Lonely, and she loves the message that comes through in all of their marketing, that you can be sexy at any age. “The response I had to those pictures was amazing; really superpositive,” she says.
For her latest screen appearance, in quirky comedy movie This Town, we get a different version of Robyn again. She plays a former small-town cop called Pam who is convinced that a local man (played by David White) shot his entire family and, even though he has been found not guilty of the murders, refuses to stop looking for evidence. Pam is a character who doesn’t waste time on personal grooming. She has ruddy cheeks, lank hair and frumpy clothes.
“I loved doing this film but it was challenging because I look like such a dog,” says Robyn. “I said that to my sister Jenny and she was like, ‘no you don’t’, so I showed her a photo and she went, ‘oh, yes you do’.”
Rima too has a fresh look in her role as opportunistic local journalist Janice McManus. Gone is the short grey hair she had decided to embrace, and now she has swishy
“The older we get, the more interesting our stories are… we’ve fallen over and we’ve got back up.”
“I’m relieved I never had kids. I’d be worried sick, with the way the world is today.”
brunette extensions.“I needed them for another job and I adore them,” she says. “I’d like them for the rest of my life; but they cost a fortune.”
New freedom
The pair had a ball filming This Town for lots of reasons. Working with a script they loved and a great bunch of people for a start. Then there was being in the Hawke’s Bay and being put up in a fancy house with a swimming pool and beautiful gardens. “It was heaven on earth,” sighs Rima. “I didn’t want to leave.”
But perhaps the most novel part of making this movie was being able to feel totally relaxed about the way they look.
“Normally as an actor you’re constantly trying to hold yourself well so it was liberating to be able to push my tummy out and see how much I could slouch,” says Robyn
“Just being able to let it all hang out, wasn’t it great?” agrees Rima.
There is pressure on many of us to have a certain body shape and look. Both women have felt it at times and wished they were slimmer. But one advantage of getting older is the realisation that skinny isn’t everything.
“I’ve been really thin and much as I love it, I don’t actually suit it,” admits Rima. “My head goes into the shape of an egg and my arms are like praying mantis twigs. It doesn’t balance out.”
“When I got too thin I hated taking up less space,” confides Robyn. “I like taking up a certain amount of space in the world. Being smaller, it felt like I couldn’t shout as loud, or something.”
And Robyn has done her share of shouting, often to other people’s disapproval. Both she and Rima are no strangers to protests or marches, but it is Robyn who seems to have hit the headlines – whether it is for speaking her mind about environmental issues or taking on the producers of The Hobbit over inequities in actors’ pay. As a result there has been hate mail, even death threats, and it has made her careful about the fights she takes on in the future.
“I’m a bit more battle-worn,” says Robyn. “When actors get involved in anything political, you cop a lot of flak. It’s like, ‘How dare
you; you wouldn’t have a clue, shut up.’ And in the days of social media you get hammered.”
Still, this is an election year and Robyn has things she is concerned about, particularly climate change and the widening gap in this country between rich and poor.
“So I’m going to do what I can to help,” she says. “I’m not a politician and I’m not an economist, but I know what I believe and the country I want to live in.”
Rima too is worried about climate change. “I’m relieved I never had kids,” she says. “I’d be worried sick, with the way the world is today.”
Neither of them has ever been tempted to go into politics. These self-confessed wussy actors who cry a lot reckon it would be too tough. But when you listen to them talk about acting it becomes clear that this, also, is not a career for the faint-hearted. There are endless auditions and rejections, projects that fall over, financial insecurity and peripatetic lives that can result in strained relationships and neglected friendships.
“When you choose to be an actor it’s a complete lifestyle, not just what you do when you go to work,” says Robyn. “But you get used to the transience and not knowing what you’ll be doing in six months’ time.”
Up next for her is a small role in Kiwi director Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog. Rima has projects lined up and ideas of her own she hopes to work on.
Soon they will be heading in separate directions, but you get the sense this new friendship is strong enough to last. When I leave, the conversation continues. They are talking about plans for the future, and Rima has it sorted: “We’re going to work together again, even if we have to force people to hire us!”