Actor, model, writer, muse — she’s a star on the rise, and the stage is set for her.
A playful Liza Minnelli, a dramatic diva, Audrey Hepburn “crying at the train station” ... Would the real Roxie Mohebbi please stand up?
Playing a carousel of characters for a Viva photoshoot came naturally to this New Zealand-Iranian star in the making, for whom performing is more than just a job.
“It’s like this weird vessel to figure out how life and the world works,” she explains. “The more I step out of my own identity, the more I learn about my identity.”
So far, that's proving to be multi-faceted. Viewers may know Roxie best as Shortland Street's Dr Samira Moradi, a role she ironically took on after leaving her day job as a neonatal intensive care nurse, "a nice little promotion", she quips.
She's also flexing her comedy chops for Simone Nathan's new semi-autobiographical show for TVNZ, Kid Sister, in which she plays the best friend of the Jewish protagonist trying to fit in in Auckland.
Roxie and her family emigrated from Tehran, Iran, to Nelson when she was five, so much of the "ridiculousness" of the show resonated, just in a different cultural context. Serendipitously, it was suggested to her family they watch Shortland Street to help them assimilate into the Kiwi way of life.
“It makes you realise how universal the experience is in a lot of ways when you belong to a minority group. Film-making is so integral to making people feel seen, even if it’s not your story exactly.”
Next, there's her substantial role in the third season of TVNZ drama One Lane Bridge, the chance to film in Queenstown proving a pinch-me moment.
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Advertise with NZME.She also has been working with Iranian film-makers like Ghazaleh Golbakhsh (Shorty's first Iranian actor 2020-2021, playing Detective Roshan Namal); the other on Eagle vs Shark star Loren Taylor's directorial debut Going, Going, with Elizabeth Hawthorne, Robyn Malcolm and Robbie Magasiva.
Still, it’s been a roundabout journey to the screen. While at high school she played the vivacious Mama Morton in Nelson Theatre’s version of Chicago, a role she says gave her confidence and the ability to embrace her voluminous natural curls.
“Acting gave me permission to be loud and strong and all these things in a small and very white city, things I wasn’t allowed to be,” she says.
Then throughout her 20s Roxie put the arts on the back-burner to pursue a nursing degree, to ensure a financially stable backup as it was her newfound appreciation for astrology. “Apparently it’s a very Capricorn thing to do: to be frugal and have a plan and be organised.”
It paid off as her skills were sought after when the pandemic took hold, and yet nursing left her so depleted she developed alopecia.
“I ended up getting really sick. I lost a lot of my hair. I just became really exhausted and anxious and nursing just made my whole personal life suffer.”
It was at that point she had her carpe diem moment. Inspired by the richness of her home country’s film-making culture, and driven by the passion for performing she’d cultivated in her teens, she hit auditions armed with chutzpah as opposed to formal acting training.
First came parts on Power Ranges and the Netflix series The New Legends of Monkey, along with modelling gigs for the likes of Kate Sylvester and Paris Georgia. Then came that life-altering role on our national soap, filmed over much of last year, the sound effects in Ferndale's fictional hospital one day evoking what felt like a PTSD response.
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“The fictional hospitals are fake they didn’t give me any nostalgic feelings, and there’s always people rushing up to you to touch up your hair or give you lip balm, which is the complete opposite of what it’s really like,” she laughs.
“In NICU there are so many monitors, there’s this orchestra of little beeps you hear in the shower when you go home. There was this one surgery scene where I was triggered. I got a hot flush, my ears were burning, my chest felt tight. It was a freaky moment.”
Her time on the fast-paced soap was nonetheless a great training ground and “gateway drug,” impressing upon her the importance of connecting with a wide range of actors and others on set and doing so quickly.
She also came to appreciate the lateral-mindedness of producers, as the show negotiated the incongruity of filming clandestine affairs Samira’s dalliance with nurse Prince Kimiora and a scandalous relationship with her boss in an age of social distancing.
Once again, Roxie’s hair came to the party during her cliffhanger kiss with Sara Wiseman’s character, Dr Francesca Telford, the action obscured by her curls, “a crazy moment I’ll remember for the rest of my life”.
That, and Samira’s “finger-snap moment” at Chris Warner for belonging to the old boys’ club. “I mean, we’re talking about Chris here!” she laughs. “It’s pretty iconic.”
“I really used this opportunity to have my own little win. To be on primetime television and just exist as I am. So, weirdly, I didn’t end up taking those comments to heart."
"If they can get used to me then the next person who looks like that will have an easier time. It’s all about slowly chipping away at those standards."
"You know how you say those things like, I wish growing up I saw someone in the limelight that looked like me? It’s so cheesy but that dream is weirdly becoming realised. It’s so monumental.”
Fashion director / Dan Ahwa. Photographer’s assistant / Josh Szeto. Makeup / Kiekie Stanners for Loser Kid. Hair / Danny Pato from D&M Design using Davines. Hair assistant / Fernanda Guimarães. Fashion assistant / Annabel Dickson. With thanks to Auckland Live and The Civic Theatre.
