Stephanie Tauevihi - Happily ever after

It should be the biggest day of her screen life but Stephanie Tauevihi has plenty of other things to think about, writes LOUISA CLEAVE.

Stephanie Tauevihi is thinking of a one-word description which encompasses all the things she is - actress, singer, songwriter and mother.

"Performer," she suggests, then discards it, saying it sounds like she juggles oranges.

The writer's job is nearly as difficult. Print has no soundtrack to capture the Shortland Street actor's animation, the range of voices she uses for all the anecdotes and jokes she injects into the interview.

One moment Tauevihi's the grandmother who cornered her in a supermarket, the next she's the Tongan fan of Shortland Street who bailed her up during a publicity tour of the Pacific nation to discuss her character's storyline.

She breaks mid-sentence and turns to the Herald photographer to comment on the size of his lens: "Wouldn't mistake you for an amateur photographer at the zoo, would we?"

The easiest approach, then, is just to break down all the action into Tauevihi's separate portfolios. In order, then: what she does and why.

As Donna Heka on the country's longest-running local drama, Tauevihi has been in the thick of Shortland Street storylines since she joined the cast three years ago.

This week she is the centre of attention when she marries long-time love Rangi (Blair Strang) in the 2000th episode which screens on Friday. The show also celebrated its eighth birthday two days ago.

Tauevihi, nearly 27, has spent 12 years working in television, starting with a presenting role on the youth television show Infocus. But it has been Shortland Street which propelled her into the public eye.

She has a following of fans from her days on radio station Mai FM, but has Donna to thank for being recognised in the street. "It's taken a very long time for me to call myself an actor because I feel I've been a bit of a cheat," she says.

"I haven't done the kind of down-and-out working tables in some restaurant, craving for a gig. I kind of fell into it. It's my first big acting gig, apart from Pio which was more comedy and slapstick. This is my first acting gig so to say, 'Yes, I'm an actor,' is kind of weird. I'm getting more used to it."

As for the singing, Tauevihi has recorded on and off with the Strawpeople and features on their current album, No New Messages.

Privately, she has been writing songs and is putting together a demo album of her own work, which she describes as not dissimilar to the Strawpeople sound.

"That's something special for me to have away from here [Shortland Street], because this is such a huge part of my life and you don't get to pack up and go home," she says.

"You do take your job home with you, into the supermarket, walking down the street to get a bottle of milk. It's quite nice to have something that is my own that I can hold to me."

In her role as mum to a 7-year-old son, Tauevihi's most recent development has been cooking.

"I started baking. My son had a school gala day, so that was very good to do. I'm not very good in the kitchen. I'm Queen of the Microwave."

It is surprising, given her vast commitments, that the one thing Tauevihi says she is not good at is strategic planning.

"Sometimes time runs away with me. That's something I'm not very good at, the old time-management.

"I don't necessarily float, but I don't fight things or try and push things along. I seem to have enough to deal with so I take each moment as it comes."

Tauevihi addresses the public side of her television job with humour.

"You go out and you might be at the traffic lights shoving your whole fist up your nose getting at something and you turn and there's a whole Kombi van full of kids.

"You do check yourself. Or when I'm running and things are moving and people are looking and tooting."

All that talk of time and motion is mirrored in her struggle to sit still during the interview at a table in the cafe in the Shortland Street studios but she reckons that is the result of a two-week holiday in Australia.

The post-holiday bounce will probably evaporate after a couple of days back in the grind of work.

Tauevihi is looking forward to easing Donna into post-marital bliss after the long-running storyline in which she and Rangi fell in love, were horrified to discover they were brother and sister (incest!), found out they weren't, then moved on to different partners.

Then there was the domestic violence story where Donna was pulled in to helping her next-door neighbour to dispose of her husband's body after she had killed him.

"I had a huge storyline ... so it's nice to give that a bit of a flick, sit back and settle into post-marital domestic bliss.

"There are lots of soft, gentle moments between [Donna and Rangi] which is really nice to play out when you've been doing the angst-ridden, angry, pent-up, can't talk about it stuff."

Which leads to the inevitable question: will the new domestic Donna disappear into the background and leave Tauevihi to move on to her next challenge?

"I'm enjoying it for now. I take every moment as it comes. That's probably why I'm so bad at time-management."