Antonia Prebble stars in her first comedy series Double Parked which screens later this week. Photo/ Dean Purcell for Canvas Magazine.
Jane Phare catches up with actor Antonia Prebble to talk about her latest TV series, Double Parked, juggling motherhood, her most gruesome scene and how she’s related to Princess Diana.
Antonia Prebble is multi-tasking, squeezing in a Zoom-meets-car-karaoke interview with Reset magazine while being driven to her next appointment by long-time partner, actor and writer Daniel Musgrove.
We’ve both got croaky, laryngitis voices, the connection keeps freezing and dropping off but, hey, we’re professionals. We keep going.
Prebble, who turned 39 last week, is a cheerful, obliging soul to interview, thoughtful with her answers but not overly cautious. That’s a relief: dodgy throats and connection plus a wary subject would be in the way-too-hard basket.
Prebble, never short of roles on offer, is used to juggling motherhood with a career that pulls her in all directions. Sometimes her roles overlap, putting pressure on family life and meaning she and Musgrove have to map out schedules in a “Rubik’s-cube” style of planning and time management.
Later this week she’ll hit the TV screens with a Thursday night comedy, Double Parked, on Three in which she stars with long-time friend Madeleine Sami (they once went to clown school together in Paris). Three weeks of Double Parked filming overlapped with Shortland Street, playing the nasty televangelist Rebekah, during which Prebble worked six-day weeks often starting at 5.30am for a makeup slot.
That meant she needed a lot of backup. How did it go? Prebble swivels the phone sideways for a glimpse of her chauffeur.
“Hello Dan.”
“No comment,” he grins at the screen. It was pretty busy. Musgrove slowed his work schedule and between him and a part-time nanny, made sure their two sons, Freddie who turns 4 next month, and 22-month-old Gus, visited their mum every day on the sets of Shortland Street – which Freddie calls “the pretend hospital”- and Double Parked.
Two different roles you couldn’t imagine. In Double Parked, Prebble and Sami play Steph and Nat, a lesbian couple who have been trying, without success, to have a baby. Without giving too much of the plot away, IVF and an “administrative error” is involved, and a spot of home-based turkey basting. Both Steph and Nat find themselves pregnant at the same time, much to the shock of their flatmates, Johnny (Dominic Ona-Ariki) and Lily (Kura Forrester).
What follows is a riot of chaos, highs and lows, joys and challenges – and non-stop laughter on the set.
Compare that to Prebble’s murderous character Rebekah on Shorty where, in one unforgettable scene, she bludgeons youth pastor Scott Lawson (Jaxin Hall) to death with a fire extinguisher.
“I couldn’t quite believe it when I read that scene, and then we actually filmed it, because this was Shortland Street this was 7pm prime time.”
After 15 years and 12 seasons playing bogan Loretta in Outrageous Fortune and later Rita in Westside, she was used to rough and nasty. But smashing someone’s face with a fire extinguisher was on a whole different level.
As she “pounded” Lawson’s face, the wardrobe woman – just outside the camera shot - was flicking fake blood on Prebble’s face each time she bashed the fire extinguisher down.
“It was pretty gross,” she laughs. “That was hands down the most violent, brutal, gruesome thing I’ve ever done in my entire career.”
A laugh a minute
By comparison, Prebble laughed her way through the entire six episodes of Double Parked, leaving her hooked on comedy work after years of acting in dramas.
“I’ve never had more fun on a production. I’ve definitely never laughed as much or corpsed [an unscripted fit of laughter] as much on a production as this one.”
The cast all hope they’ll get funding for a second season.
“It was a very special vibe and all of us unanimously feel like we’d love to have another go, so fingers crossed.”
Prebble would do another comedy in a heartbeat but is in fact, for the sake of family life, taking her foot off the acting accelerator after a hectic work schedule. She and Musgrove have two TV shows in development, she has a few minor commitments and she’s just launched a new season of her podcast, What Matters Most, which she does with clinical psychologist friend Jacqui Maguire. But right now she wants to be a mum and spend lots of time with her boys.
There’s nothing that gives Prebble greater pleasure than a session of wriggle and rhyme at the library.
“I think it’s one of the activities that gives me the most pleasure in life, being around all these beautiful babies and their families. It is just so wonderful.”
Family time is spent at the playground, the Auckland Zoo or Motat, and on rainy days the Auckland Museum. Holidays are equally family orientated, spending Christmas and New Year at family baches on both sides, one in the Marlborough Sounds, the other in the Abel Tasman area.
Prebble is used to putting acting plans on hold for the sake of her boys. In 2021 she turned down a role in a film with Stephen Fry.
“It would have been an incredible opportunity, and a big step forward for me career-wise. But it was to be filmed in Croatia, six weeks after Gus was born and we were in lockdown. So it was unfortunately way too hard on many levels.”
On hold, too, are plans to head to Los Angeles to audition for international projects.
“For now, with the boys so little, it’s much easier to take on projects that are closer to home.”
It was feeling over-committed that nearly led to Prebble turning down the chance play Steph in Double Parked. She still hadn’t finished filming Shortland Street and thought taking on the role would mean too much time away from the boys.
But the show’s producer Bronwynn Bakker, herself a mother of two young children, assured Prebble she would make it as easy as possible.
Freddie and Gus were welcome on the set each day, she was given a later slot of makeup to shorten her day and the clincher was that Double Parked was filmed in Mt Albert, a few minutes’ drive away from where Prebble lives and across the road from a favourite playground.
During a three-week overlap with the two shows, Prebble worked six days a week, with Musgrove and a part-time nanny as the support team.
Last year, too, was full on, fitting in three markedly different projects – an Auckland Theatre Company play, appearing on Masked Singer NZ, and filming a four-part TV thriller, Safe Home, in Melbourne.
Returning to the stage for the first time in 10 years, Prebble co- starred as the blonde double agent Eve Kendall in North by Northwest, adapted from Alfred Hitchcock’s spy thriller. She needed little persuasion after hearing renowned director and “creative genius” Simon Phillips had created the play.
“I’ve wanted to work with him for years. When this opportunity came up I said ‘yes’ before I even knew what the play was when I knew he was involved.”
Unmasking Regal Rose
There doesn’t seem much that Prebble won’t tackle.
Last year she took on the challenge of singing Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time on Masked Singer NZ, disguised as “Regal Rose.” Who knew Antonia Prebble could sing? She was chuffed when two of the judges thought it was singer Hayley Westenra beneath the elaborate mask.
The name “Regal Rose” was a play on Prebble’s royal connection. Growing up she vaguely knew her grandmother was connected to royalty on Princess Diana’s side. But it wasn’t until Prebble appeared in DNA Detectives six years ago that the connection was narrowed down. DNA testing showed Prebble was fourth cousin once removed to Princess Diana, and is 5th cousin to William, Prince of Wales, and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex.
One thing Prebble never seems to get time to do is get married. She’s a marriage celebrant and has married friends, including actress JJ Fong and cinematographer Marty Smith, in the past.
Prebble and Musgrove, with whom she co-starred in Westside, have been trying to find time for a year or two now. So when?
“It’s the million-dollar question. My mum asked me that just the other day.”
Maybe when the boys are a little older, she ponders.
“We’re beginning to come out of the fog of those early few years. We’re starting to think we’ve got a bit more mental bandwidth to think about other things other than just the essentials of day-to-day life. Whether it will be next year or the following year, that is still currently hanging in the balance.”
Double Parked launches on June 15 at 8:30pm on Three and Three Now.
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