The 24-year-old Aucklander has landed a coveted recurring role on the show's third season, which starts screening in the US from September 29. Photo / NZPA
The 24-year-old Aucklander has landed a coveted recurring role on the show's third season, which starts screening in the US from September 29. Photo / NZPA
McIver toning up to star in Once Upon a Time's third season.
It's a fairytale role for Kiwi actress Rose McIver (The Lovely Bones, Masters of Sex) who is the newest addition to television series Once Upon a Time on the American ABC network.
The 24-year-old Aucklander (pictured right) has landed a coveted recurring role on the show's third season, which starts screening in the US from September 29. But it means getting into shape for the tiny Tinkerbell costume before shooting starts in Vancouver next week.
"She's really excited to be taking on such an iconic character but she's doing a number of sit-ups to squeeze into the costume," said her rep Imogen Johnson.
Also in Vancouver is fellow Kiwi Karl Urban who starts filming his new JJ Abrams-directed TV series Almost Human. Urban, who's also represented by Johnson, said he hoped to resurrect his Judge Dredd movie role for a sequel. But there's no word on whether he'll take on the swagger of Richie McCaw for Kiwi TV movie The Kick. Insiders say he is yet to read a script.
Just like an All Black Radio host Dominic Harvey was ecstatic when he got a call from a casting agent asking him to play an All Black for a Japanese TV ad. He took to Twitter to boast. But what he didn't know was that it was a prank for a skit on upcoming TV special Comedy for Cure Kids on August 23.
"I got told to come in for a casting call yesterday for a Japanese noodle company. They said I had to play an All Black. I thought, yeah, I can do that. Maybe one of the less attractive ones, like Kieran Read," he told The Diary.
Harvey, no stranger to radio pranks, had been duped. "Foolishly I believed it! I thought they thought I look like an All Black!" he laughed. But he quickly smelled a rat. Turns out, the 15 Japanese people in the room were actors all in on the gag, and there were hidden cameras everywhere.
Dominic Harvey at his "fake" TV commercial in which he was asked to promote Japanese noodles.
Sources in the industry say the pair will host a breakfast show, but TRN says that's speculation and "we haven't settled on the show yet".
TRN's incoming chief of content, Dean Buchanan, confirmed the duo would start in 2014 but said a MediaWorks contract prevented further details being released.
"They are still employed by MediaWorks and contractually and legally they can't comment and we can't comment further. They have a confidentiality clause in their MediaWorks contract that prevents them from talking about what they will be doing, and until they leave, there is nothing that can be said," Buchanan told The Diary. Fletch and Vaughan are on leave from their drive show, ahead of the busy radio survey which starts August 10. But asked if they'll be returning to The Edge after their holiday break, a MediaWorks rep would only say, "no comment".
With so little information to go on, colleagues took to Twitter to speculate.
More FM's Trudi Nelson said the pair "have been promised a network breakfast show. That's after their eight-month garden leave". Edge brekkie host Dominic Harvey wished his colleagues well. "Good luck to them. You gotta take these opportunities when they present themselves. Eight months' leave sounds delicious."
Jumping ship News this week that youth channel TVNZ U is to close at the end of next month to make way for a time-shifted version of TV2 came as no surprise for some in the media. A lack of viewers, decent international programmes and network resources meant the youth channel could only be sustained for so long.
Rose Matafeo got out early. Like Matt Gibb, she became a well-known and marketable face of the channel with broad crossover appeal. But she called it quits, and leaves TVNZ on Friday.
Rose Matafeo.
She will appear onscreen, too, at some point throughout the series, said producer Bronwynn Wilson.
It's a wise move for the 21-year-old comedian, who this year won the Billy T award at the NZ International Comedy Festival.
As for the stars of the show, Jono Pryor and Ben Boyce joked: "Rose is great but it probably was the short end of the stick in the Home and Away deal."
He's a long way from the liquefaction of Christchurch, but Government minister Gerry Brownlee, in San Francisco for an earthquake conference, made the most of his time by wining and dining Tom Cruise and Warner Brothers executives and watching Team NZ beat Luna Rossa.
Emirates Team New Zealand MD Grant Dalton talks with Tom Cruise. Photo / Chris Cameron
Cruise had been at Comic-Con in San Diego plugging his upcoming sci-fi film Edge of Tomorrow, a Warner Brothers production. And the studio, makers of The Hobbit, have a penchant for our Government ministers and their subsidies.
Brownlee hinted the hobnobbing was not for nothing.
"[Cruise] does have a great fondness for New Zealand and does want to spend more time in New Zealand and be able to perhaps make some more films down here," he told One Sport.
Funny how fondness and friendship can manifest when funding and perks are found.
