Another Castle-Hughes to be seen on NZ screens

Move over Keisha, your brother is after the spotlight.

Rhys Castle-Hughes, 12, has been given one of four lead parts in the children's television drama series The Lost Children, which begins shooting in Wellington today.

He will play a Maori boy who helps three shipwrecked British children try to find their mother in a drama set in the 1860s.

The Lost Children will be the first role of substance for Rhys, whose sister Keisha earned an Oscar nomination for her performance in Whale Rider.

"We found him quite quickly," said John Gilbert of Big House Productions, which is producing the series.

"He seemed like a natural."

Rhys will not be the only child with family connections in acting to star in the series, Gilbert said. Beatrice Joblin is the daughter of Geraldine Brophy, best-known on television for playing Moira in Shortland Street for some years.

The other two child leads will be Hudson Mills, who has extensive experience acting in commercials, and Michaela Devitt.

Ex-Shortland Street star, Tandi Wright, plays the mother of the British children, while the villains are played by veteran New Zealand actors John Bach and Brian Sergeant.

The series came about after Gilbert and director Mike Smith, who had earlier made the show Willy Nilly, met TVNZ to discuss a children's series to fulfil the station's charter requirements.

"We came back a week later with the idea for The Lost Children, and they really liked it," Gilbert said.

"It's taken a couple of years to get ready while we've been working on other things but it's nice to finally be ready."

Shooting will be at various locations around Wellington. Many will be outdoors, which is causing some anxiety.

"It's really exciting and we have a great cast and crew but we're a bit nervous shooting in winter," he said.

"We can do some work in a studio if the weather's not great but most of it will need to be outside and some of the environments will be tough.

"However, we have 10 or 11 weeks to shoot so unless it's a really bad winter we should be fine."

Much of the shooting will be on beaches and in parks, but for some scenes it's likely that a part of Thorndon, one of Wellington's oldest suburbs, will have horses walking down it as the producers re-create an 1860s street scene.

For Gilbert it's a pleasant change to be producing. He's best known as an editor, his credits including The Fellowship Of The Ring and Roger Donaldson's new feature The World's Fastest Indian, which premieres in Invercargill in September.

"Usually I'm stuck in a room by myself. It's good to be out and about interacting with people."

Gilbert said the budget for The Lost Children, which is being funded by TVNZ without NZ On Air, was "very generous by New Zealand television standards".

He expects the series to air in New Zealand next year, and is hopeful it might be picked up overseas.

The Lost Children will be the second big-budget television show in production in Wellington this winter. Last month saw the beginning of shooting for Insider's Guide To Love, the sequel to the much-acclaimed Insider's Guide To Happiness, and it's already confusing some Wellingtonians.

What appears to be the Labour Of Loaf bakery on Cuba St is actually one of the sets for Insider's Guide To Love, and people have been walking in trying to buy bread from it.

"It's a fantastic set which does look like a bakery," said the show's line producer Chris Tyson, of Gibson Group.

"But with cameras, lights and all the other gear there I would have thought people passing by might have worked out what was happening.

"In a couple of cases we have had people asking if they could buy the bread anyway, even when we tell them it's three weeks old."

Shooting is expected to continue into August. The show is likely to be on television screens towards the end of the year.

Insider's Guide To Happiness headed the television nominations for the New Zealand Screen Awards with 11, including one, perhaps not surprisingly, for design.

- NZPA