Rising film star 'glad to be a Kiwi'

Emily Barclay with Suburban Mayhem co-star Michael Dorman.

She may be "over" New Zealand but 22-year-old actress Emily Barclay is glad she hails from Godzone, Aotearoa.

Starring in the Australian film Suburban Mayhem, Barclay told the Sydney Morning Herald it was pure luck that she has become an internationally acclaimed actress.

"There are a million people out there who could do what I'm doing and I got a chance.

"It makes me feel so lucky that I'm from New Zealand because I wouldn't be doing this if I wasn't. If I'd grown up in America there's no way I'd be doing this," Barclay told the newspaper.

Barclay rose to fame in 2004's acclaimed New Zealand production In My Father's Den, which won her Most Promising Newcomer at last year's British Independent Film Awards.

Before that, the North Shore teenager spent her days working in a video rental store, going to uni and starring in the occassional local television programme.

Barclay left Auckland earlier this year, relocating to Sydney's Surry Hills suburb because she was "over New Zealand and wanted to go somewhere new," she told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Though the raven-haired actress considers herself blessed to have such an amazing life, critics panned Suburban Mayhem after its screening at Cannes Film Festival this year.

In the film, Barclay plays 19-year-old Katrina Skinner - a sultry, seductive, single mother who plots to kill her father.

Screen Daily reviewer Lee Marshall wrote that the film, "has more attitude than depth".

"In the end, the film is too seduced by its central character, and not concerned enough with little matters such as story structure and tonal continuity."

The negative press does not appear to have affected Barclay's career, however, and she is set to start filming the period piece Bronte in Yorkshire, England, early next year.

Based on the lives of the Bronte sisters, Barclay will play the youngest sister, Anne Bronte, starring opposite Brokeback Mountain actress Michelle Williams and British actress Nathalie Press.

- NZHERALD STAFF