Kids give masterclass in political interviewing
TVNZ 1 special shows human side of leaders vying for power
Move over Mike Hosking, Paddy Gower, Lisa Owen — it turns out the best political interviewers of this election campaign might just be a classroom of 8 to 12-year-old kids from Ellerslie School.
TVNZ 1 special Face The Classroom sent the leaders of seven New Zealand political parties to be questioned by kids in a two-part special on Monday and Tuesday night this week. Based on Presidentielle: Candidats au Tableau! (“Candidates on the Board”), which aired in the lead-up to the French presidential election in May, it was a pure, heartwarming ray of light piercing what has become an increasingly grim fight for political power.
For each leader, the class had prepared a short video of the kids discussing what they already knew about them. Greens leader James Shaw was there because former coleader Metiria Turei had “resigned because she had done forgery” (“Er . . . not quite,” interjected kindly narrator Wallace Chapman). It was agreed that Opportunities Party leader Gareth Morgan had an awesome moustache, but “is it fake or real?” Bill English’s social media
Nicole Kidman gave a rousing acceptance speech at the Emmy Awards, but there’s one small detail especially noteworthy for Kiwis. The Big Little Lies star thanked one of our own in her heartfelt speech, saying: “I have a huge artistic family who have supported me through all of my ups and downs . . . you have been so loyal to me through my whole life, thank you for that.”
And one of the people she listed as part of that family was Kiwi Miranda Harcourt, an actor, writer, director and acting coach who met Kidman while working on the Oscarnominated Lion.
In response to Kidman’s tribute on the Emmys stage, Harcourt took to Instagram to post a simple: “Thanks for mentioning me in your speech, mate!”
Harcourt was in a “massive queue” at Los Angeles International Airport when “my phone just started going mad” with calls from friends telling her about Kidman’s name drop.
“Honestly I do not know how she’s managed to be such a perfect human being with the insane lifestyle she must lead,” muses Harcourt.
The Kiwi acting coach was the one who coached Kidman in her first stage role in 17 years in 2015 — Photograph 51 on London’s West End, for which Kidman won best actress at the West End Theatre Awards.
Since then, Harcourt has been Kidman’s go-to on projects including The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Beguiled and her hit television series Big Little Lies, for which she won her Emmy on Monday.
“We’ve got a great relationship, she’s a no-bullshit person, she’s very Australian. She’s extremely smart . . . she’s very intuitive and she just needs someone else who’s a no-bullshit person and who can work fast, efficiently and any time of the day or night,” says Harcourt.
And while she says it’s not the first time Kidman and other clients have thanked her on such a public stage, it does still take some getting used to.
“It makes me laugh to be the random Kiwi chick down here at the bottom of the world working with these big Hollywood stars, but it’s fun. It’s really fun for me.”
Harcourt’s latest project is Kiwi film The Changeover, which stars British actor Timothy Spall and New Zealand’s own Melanie Lynskey, who Harcourt has been working with for nearly 25 years since working on Lynskey’s first film, Heavenly Creatures.
The Changeover, based on Margaret Mahy’s book of the same name, opens in cinemas around New Zealand on September 28. 30 seconds to spare, was a Picassoesque masterpiece), Shaw had to correctly sort rubbish into the right bin (wrongly putting a Pyrex jug in the recycling), while Seymour led the class in a singalong to Exponents classic Why Does Love Do This To Me?
It probably won’t have changed many votes — at least no more or less than the televised leaders’ debates — but Face The Classroom was a timely reminder that no matter how loathsome you might find their politics, our political leaders are still ultimately all fundamentally decent people. And if their astute 8 to 12-yearold interviewers were anything to go by, it also served as a compelling case for lowering the voting age.