"I tried to get hold of him but couldn't and then I went to the hairdresser's a couple of days later and they said 'you'll never guess who was in here today'.
"It was John, he'd had an accident with a chardonnay and a comb that got stuck in his hair and he'd had to cut out and they'd had to fix it for his show.
"So we managed to meet up at Raumati Sands Resort, had a chat, and got him into the movie, which was really fun.
"It just shows you what happens in Kāpiti.
"If things are meant to be they will happen and they do."
Linda shared the anecdote at a special screening of the film at Event Cinemas Coastlands, Paraparaumu, this month, hosted by Lotto NZ, as part of the New Zealand Film Commission's 40-year celebration of Kiwi films.
She said the movie, which hit the movie screen about 10 years ago and was shot in Kāpiti, had held its own because it is "a very genuine movie which shines through".
Nick, who also helped introduce the special screening, said the movie was "about us, about Kāpiti".
"It was a movie I wrote after I did a film called Stickmen which was a very laddish movie, X rated, and I was kind of put in a position where everyone thought that was the kind of movies I would make.
"So I decided to go completely opposite and write a movie with two female leads.
"I'm not a very imaginative person so I plagiarised life and wrote it about my mother and my sister.
"That seemed to work out quite well because I've spent my whole life embarrassing my mother, so to do it on screens nationwide was brilliant.
"So I wrote the script but no one wanted to make it and I think it took about eight years to get anyone interested and then finally Linda came onboard with director Paul Murphy and it happened.
"It's nice to be able to publicly thank Linda for making this movie happen."