KIWI ACTORS’ MELBOURNE OR BUST
Work has been heating up for a trio of Kiwi actors in Melbourne — including Rebecca Gibney, who has been truly cooking up a storm.
Gibney, who recently finished filming Under the Vines in and around Queenstown, flew over from her home in Dunedin a few weeks ago to be part of Celebrity MasterChef Australia.
She is among luminaries including fashion designer Collette Dinnigan, Olympic swimming legend Ian Thorpe and former AFL player Nick Riewoldt.
It is the second season of Celebrity MasterChef Australia; the first was filmed more than 10 years ago.
The refreshed judging panel of MasterChef Australia, Andy Allen, Melissa Leong and Jock Zonfrillo, are also helming the celebrity version.
This week, as Gibney left Melbourne, she wrote on Instagram: “That’s a wrap for us all on Celebrity MasterChef. Could not have asked for a more beautiful bunch of people to walk through the MasterChef kitchen doors.
“I laughed, I squealed, I may have sworn, I cried, but I had the most wonderful, intense, crazy, mad time with some of the most extraordinary people I’ve ever met. I’ve made friends for life and I am so grateful for the opportunity to challenge myself in more ways than one.”
Meanwhile, Robbie Magasiva who has recently finished filming with Gibney in Under the Vines, and in Auckland for rugby drama Head
High, is back in Melbourne where he became a household name in prison drama Wentworth.
This week Magasiva announced via Instagram that he was working on the new series, Spreadsheet.
“As of today, it’s now official!! The last couple of weeks I’ve been working on this little gem with these wonderful people, the cast of Spreadsheet.”
He appears in the series with his fellow Wentworth prison guard Bernard Curry.
Both may be playing for the love interests of the series star, English actress Katherine Parkinson ,of Doc Martin fame.
The eight-part comedy series is about a divorced, hectic, mother-of-two, Lauren, who is looking for sex without commitment. She develops Spreadsheet: a database of sex options, customised to ensure her sushi train of sex, rolls around with variety and order amid the chaos of her life.
Last but not least is Josh McKenzie, who has been filming US show La Brea, which refers to the famous LA street but is being recreated in Melbourne.
The NBC show centres around a family whose life is torn apart, literally, by a massive sinkhole in Los Angeles. Some of the family find themselves in an unexplained primeval world and have to find out how to get home. McKenzie will be seen on home screens soon on the Lucy Lawless show, My Life is Murder.