Robyn Malcolm plays the mother of a grown man who has an imaginary friend in new short film Twenty One Points. Photo/Doug Sherring
Robyn Malcolm plays the mother of a grown man who has an imaginary friend in new short film Twenty One Points. Photo/Doug Sherring
Actress Robyn Malcolm is no stranger to imaginary friends - her son Pete's pretend playmate was a gigantic Velociraptor called George.
But, unlike the protagonist in Malcolm's latest film Twenty One Points, Pete, 11, has outgrown the childhood phase.
Twenty One Points is a dark comedy, short film about Alan, played by Josh Thomson, a grown man who lives at home with his mum (Malcolm) and is best friends with an imaginary 6ft robot called Gary.
The tinny, green robot has been Alan's partner in crime and table tennis opponent since he was a young boy.
Malcolm - who starred as Cheryl West in the TV crime comedy Outrageous Fortune - told the Herald on Sunday she drew on her personal experience of having a child with an imaginary friend, for the film.
"In a weird way I have an image of what George, the 3-metre-high Velociraptor looked like because it was so real to Pete that the only way I could engage with it was to imagine it was real too, which is what's so wonderful about being a parent.
"I related that absolutely to this mother character...but her son is not a three year old, he's in his early 30s."
As well as playing Cheryl West in Outrageous Fortune, Malcolm is also much-loved by Kiwi viewers for playing nurse Ellen Crozier during a five-year stint on Shortland Street.
Between 2013 and 2014 she played the role of Anna Kingston in Agent Anna.
Her silver screen credits include a lead role in The Hopes and Dreams of Gazza Snell and a minor role in the second movie in the Lord of the Rings triology.
Actor and comedian Josh Thomson plays the main character Alan, in the film. Photo/Jason Oxenham
Writer and director Pete Circuitt said the concept for the film was born when he overheard a discussion on the radio about the state of mental health in New Zealand, which he believed was "not great".
So, he created a short film, set over a single day in suburban New Zealand, to explore the potential of an unhinged mind.
Twenty One Points is set to be complete by August, in time to be entered into a number of prestigious film festival including Sundance and Cannes. Lord of the Rings However, with a limited budget and sophisticated animation, Circuitt has had to set up a Booster page to raise money to pay skilled animators and compositors to get Gary the robot, a CGI character, into the movie before the deadline.
The page has raised just over $10,000 towards its $15,000 goal.
Malcolm said she loved being part of the film and wouldn't be surprised if the character of Gary became a "global phenomenon".
"The relationship [between Gary and Alan] is jaw-droppingly beautiful.
"[Thomson's] a hilarious person but there's a few moments in this where the character [Alan] engages in some quite dark, emotive stuff and Josh absolutely goes there, he is wonderful for that."
