Robyn Malcolm on menopause: ‘I’m not going to shy away from talking about it’

Robyn Malcolm is proud to be part of the dramatic shift in discussing women’s health. Photo / Emily Chalk

The actor’s got her groove back and can’t wait for other women to know her secret.

Beloved Kiwi actor Robyn Malcolm isn’t one to pussyfoot around when it comes to being candid about her struggles with anxiety, depression and menopause. Even though being honest can make her feel vulnerable, the 59-year-old hopes that, by shining a light on topics once considered taboo, she might help others feel less alone.

“There are so many things my generation has buggered up for younger people,” she says. “But one gift we have given to women of the future, we are not shutting up about menopause. Ten years ago, when I had my first hot flashes, I decided I would not go through it alone and that I would go on talking about menopause until it became normal.”

Today, Robyn is proud to be part of the dramatic shift in discussions of women’s health but she’s also sad for her mother’s and grandmother’s generations, who simply had to be stoic.

“From the changes in our physicality, our sexuality and our currency around lost fertility, there can be so much shame and grief, and there shouldn’t be. My poor grandmother, she was given barbiturates for depression when she went through menopause.”

The star is proud to be an ambassador for a revolutionary new non-hormonal, non-invasive treatment for menopause. Photo / Emily Chalk

Which is why Robyn is proud to be an ambassador for a revolutionary new non-hormonal, non-invasive treatment that’s been formulated to support women during and after menopause.

“Myregyna is the brainchild of Dr Iona Weir, who’s this Kiwi scientist who has spent the last 30 years studying how plants regenerate in a process called apoptosis. She then worked out how to get human cells to replicate that function and, from that, she’s created a cream and a pill to help menopausal women with everything from moods to libido, as well as improving our skin and our hair. It’s incredible!”

Brimming with good health, Robyn has been taking Myregyna for four months and reckons it’s working wonders.

“Whether you’ve become a bit incontinent or there’s dryness down there, or you feel like you’ve mislaid your libido ... I’m not going to shy away from talking about these things!” she laughs. “Myregyna can strengthen cells and tissues. And here’s the juicy bit for post-menopausal women suffering from a waning libido – they won’t with this stuff.

“And the stories I’ve heard from Iona and her gynaecologist pals, after 45 years learning everything my body could teach me about the big O, I thought I knew everything, but clearly not!”

Of course, there will be readers who baulk at such outspokenness, but Robyn wants to dispel any shame people feel when discussing intimacy.

“It’s amazing how many people feel uncomfortable talking about their sex lives or being truthful about sex. But one by-product of using this stuff, it’s too much fun not to talk about it, because women’s pleasure, and by that I mean women’s real pleasure, not what women think men want to hear about our pleasure, can and should be talked about.”

Robyn Malcolm with Peter Mullan in After the Party. The TV series has proved a hit with audiences around the world. Photo / NZ Woman's Weekly

As well as having a new lease on her post-menopausal life, Robyn is also delighted her TV series After the Party has proved overwhelmingly popular, not just in New Zealand but globally.

“It’s been making waves across Asia,” she says. “The French went mental for it and it’s won awards in New York, Barcelona and in France. The Aussies loved it too and, according to the ABC [network], it’s the most completed TV programme they’ve ever streamed.”

News has just broken that After the Party has been nominated for 10 awards at the New Zealand TV Awards, with the winners due to have been announced last night.

After the Party also stars Robyn’s partner, acclaimed Scottish actor and filmmaker Peter Mullan.

“At the press screening in London the other day, several people told us they stayed up all night to finish watching because they just had to smash through it!” she exclaims.

It marks the third time Robyn and Peter have starred opposite each other. Having first met on the set of Jane Campion’s Top of the Lake more than 15 years ago, their paths crossed again in 2017 when they starred in Christian Bale’s adventure film Hostiles.

“Working with Peter is always fantastic, even though in everything we’ve done together our characters have never got on. But the great thing about working with someone you love and trust so implicitly, and who you really respect as an actor, you can go to some incredibly dark places and still be fine.”

Looking to the future, Robyn is one busy woman.

Robyn and Peter first met on the set of Jane Campion’s Top of the Lake over 15 years ago. Photo / NZ Woman's Weekly

“I’m currently finishing a series in Tasmania, then I pop over to Western Australia to work on a show there and I want to continue to make my own work too. Diane Taylor, who I made After the Party with, we’ve had so many conference calls and meetings with producers in Australia and in the UK, and we’re working on a couple of ideas.

“I’m also loving not having to audition any more, which is amazing.”

Robyn is also glad she didn’t heed her dear friend Sir Sam Neill’s advice when he offered her his wisdom some years ago.

“After Outrageous Fortune, Sam told me to push myself and leave New Zealand because that way, weirdly, I’d become more employable here.

“That was 2010, the year I did Top of the Lake, and I was boring all my friends asking if I should stay or go. And they’d say, ‘It’s your life, your career, kids are adaptable.’ But my father, who’s in education, said you can do anything you like with kids until they hit their early teens, then you have to stop because, from then on, their lifeline is their environment and their friends, and their world needs to be stable.”

Now, the world is Robyn’s oyster. Photo / Emily Chalk

Which made perfect sense to Robyn. “My boys were far more important than my career, so we stayed in Auckland and here we are.”

Here she is, indeed, with both boys out of school. Charlie, 20, is about to finish university and Pete, 18, has loved his first year at Victoria University of Wellington. Now the world is Robyn’s oyster.

“I turn 60 next year. I’ve got a show that’s doing really well internationally and winning awards. I’ve picked up a British agent, my kids are both thriving, so I can think about being away for longer and spending time between here and Scotland with Peter. And the best thing, an acting career has no retirement date, even in one’s autumnal years because 60 is the new 40!”

She confesses she feels more ambitious now than she did 15 years ago.

“I still feel as scared and as much like a little kid in the wilderness as I did when I left drama school, which feels really exciting, even though it could all go tits up. But I’m philosophical about that now because life takes lots of different paths and, wherever I’ve thought I’d end up in the past, I’ve always ended up somewhere different, so I’m open to pretty much anything.”

Which is why Robyn prefers not to plan too much, even though it drives her family wild.

“Planning ahead causes me anxiety because I’m so used to life spinning on a dime. But I have a general sense of the future.

“I know I want to keep working here and internationally. I want to create something else as good as After the Party and I’d like to pay off my mortgage. World peace would also be nice and a good multiple orgasm when I’m 85!”

Hair and make-up: Chay Roberts. Styling: Angela Stone. Clothes: Coop, Farmers, Tuesday.