Max Currie, the director of award-winning queer and trans-positive drama series Rūrangi, said “hallelujah” when former professional rugby player Campbell Johnstone broke down the barrier this week, coming out as the first gay All Black.
Currie is also the co-showrunner of the multi-award-winning LGBTQ+ series, which won an Emmy Award in New York last year for Best Shortform Series.
The Oliver Page and Cole Meyers-created series is about Caz Davis, who left the rural town of Rūrangi as a woman, and returns years later, transitioned into a man and traumatised after the tragic suicide of his rugby star boyfriend, Andrew.
Rūrangi stars Liam Coleman and Elz Carrad. Photo / Sky
“Massive, loving props to Campbell. I hope he sees the show and realises he’s part of preventing the story we chose to tell from ever happening,” Currie tells Spy.
Currie, 43, used to play rugby union for the Falcons, and although perceptions are changing, he says: “There’s still a sense in Aotearoa that rugby has the last say in what it means to be a man, that it’s the gatekeeper to manhood.”
“I think the All Blacks know this; the support they’ve shown for Campbell was immediate and unconditional.”
Currie thinks this is still a pervasive idea - that when people are hurt and in pain, they shut up and carry on.
“That’s killing our men and isolating those who love them.
“It doesn’t work. It makes you miserable and angry.
“While the rugby storyline in the series is fictional, you bet that in a taboo-breaking show like Rūrangi, we were absolutely going to explore the link between the silent struggle some Kiwi men are facing and the total absence, ever, of a single, out, gay All Black.”
Max Currie
The show has been celebrated by the LGBTQ+ community across the globe. Many members of the 24-strong cast identify as gender-diverse, and all transgender characters are performed by trans actors.
Caz is played by 31-year-old Elz Carrad, who was nominated for Best Actor in the 2021 NZ Television Awards.
When Currie was at the Emmys, he planned to throw fistfuls of rainbow confetti if the show won. But when they did win, he realised the moment was more suited to acknowledging the struggle faced by trans people, so he waited until the press room afterwards to sprinkle rainbows.
“We got this amazing photo, though — it looks like it’s raining magic. And it was, that’s how the night felt.”
The Emmy helped distribution, too. Streaming giant Hulu snapped up the second season, Rūrangi: Rising Lights, for US distribution, and Currie says they are crossing their fingers that a Spanish-dubbed version might be in the works.
The second season — which premieres next Sunday on Prime and will stream on Neon — sees a return to Rūrangi, a place where Kiwi farmers and gender-diverse people have clashed.
Currie says with a much bigger budget, the world and story have hugely expanded.
All Black prop Campbell Johnstone, pictured in 2005. Photo / Photosport
Caz struggles with whether to stay on in Rūrangi and try again with Jem, his childhood sweetheart from pre-transition days, and is still troubled by Andrew’s ghost.
But an introduction to the queer youth of the area, including the mayor’s transgender child, Taylor, sees Caz consider staying on and helping the kids found Rūrangi’s first Rainbow Youth Group — though not if the transphobic mayor has anything to say about it.
“The dairy region of Rūrangi is facing a radical environmental bylaw, and Caz, Jem and Anahera — the bisexual Māori op-shop owner — find themselves in the middle of a culture war breaking out between the different factions: traditional farmers, greenies, local iwi and out-of-towner transgender activists. It’s explosive,” says Currie.
The new season will also see the town examining its colonial past, and an unresolved blood feud between Te Huia and the ancestor of the region’s reigning dairy tycoon, Sir Keith Murphy.
“With season two, because we tackle some heavy stuff, especially for rural NZ — we wanted to balance the tension with lots of laughs.
“My co-showrunner Briar Grace Smith is so funny, and she brought this gang of wild, vigilante aunties to the show, and they’re super-naughty and unafraid.”
Rūrangi is a Sky NZ Original production — bringing uniquely diverse stories to both local and international audiences is at the heart of what is driving Sky Originals’ commissioning team.
