Spy: Kiwis starring on streaming blockbusters

Antony Starr, Manu Bennett and Simone Kessell. Photos / Supplied and Getty Images

Our acting stars are hitting streaming giants in big productions over the next few months.

Antony Starr, Melanie Lynskey, Simone Kessell and Manu Bennett are just some of the Kiwis with big international projects set to launch.

Starr takes to international screens in UK director Guy Ritchie’s action thriller The Covenant next month, on Amazon Prime Video. The release date for Prime Video in NZ is yet to be announced.

He appears alongside Hollywood star Jake Gyllenhaal, who plays Sergeant Kinley, on his last tour of duty in Afghanistan when he is teamed with local interpreter Ahmed (Dar Salim of Warrior fame) to survey the region. Starr also features in hit series The Boys on the same channel.

Next week, Muru’s Bennett will be starring in boxing movie Perfect Addiction as Julian, the MMA coach of Sienna (played by Kiana Madeira), a successful boxing trainer who discovers her boyfriend, the reigning fighting champion, has been cheating on her. She decides to get her revenge by training his arch-nemesis to dethrone him in the ring.

Bennett also pops up on TVNZ+ and TVNZ 1 in Irish/New Zealand TV drama The Gone, alongside Irish stars Richard Flood and Michelle Fairley. The gripping series is about a young Irish couple who have vanished from a rural North Island town.

US-based Lynskey gained an Emmy nomination for her role as plane crash survivor Shauna in Neon’s thriller-drama, the survival flashback series Yellowjackets.

In Season 2 the talented actress has a fellow Kiwi — and an honorary Kiwi — joining her. Simone Kessell, who also starred in Muru, plays Lottie Matthews. (She can also be seen on Netflix Aussie comedy Wellmania alongside fellow Kiwi JJ Fong at the end of this month.) Lord of The Rings star Elijah Wood, is also in Yellowjackets as citizen detective Walter.

Meanwhile, things will come full circle for Wood, who loves Godzone. He will be back in Middle-earth (or at least on the Canterbury Plains) to film local movie Bookworm directed by Ant Timpson.

Due to start shooting this month, the movie is a family adventure comedy that follows 12-year-old Mildred, whose estranged American magician father (Wood), returns home to take care of her when her mother is hospitalised.

He takes his daughter camping in Southland’s rugged wilderness on a quest to find a mythological beast known as the Canterbury Panther.