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Career
Vanessa first got into acting at the age of 7 whilst living in
Central Otago, New Zealand, where her father worked as a stuntman.
She and her older brother got work as background extras.
Her first film was the post-holicaustal
action film, 'Battle Truck'. She then had appearances in 'The
Frighteners', 'Heavenly Creatures' & 'Willow'.
Vanessa was involved in numerous
choirs at school, and she joined her first band, where she recorded
various covers, at the age of 16. At age 17, she began singing
live at local nightclubs.
Vanessa joined Hagley Theatre
Company at the age of 20, where she stayed as core cast for 2 years.
She had roles in productions from 'Animal Farm' to 'The Cherry
Orchard', and acted in material from play writes such as Chekov and
Christopher Derange.
Also during this time, Vanessa gained a diploma in Jazz Theory and
Performance, and toured New Zealand with various Jazz and Blues
bands.
"Vanessa was a versatile actress who worked hard to achieve
depth in her roles. In particular she did comedy extremely
well" - Cameron Mattox (Artistic Director,
Hagley Theatre Company)
Vanessa moved to Wellington in
1996, where she started out as a free lance actor. Within 3 weeks
she landed a leading role in 'The Young And Hungry Festival', giving
her the high profile she needed.
She was then commissioned to write
and direct a play, which she completed in just 3 weeks. This
resulted in the appropriately titled 'Work In Progress' which ran
for 3 seasons.
The following year was spent
working around Wellington, and a guest spot on NZ TV's live show
'Pulp Comedy'.
In 1998, Vanessa was introduced to
Cloud 9's post-apocalyptic drama series 'The Tribe'. She was offered
guest cast, appearing in episode 32 of 'The Tribe Series 1'. She had
a total screen time of approximately 3 minutes, her slot getting
higher ratings than any previous guest appearances, as told by a
viewer pool run by Channel 5, who broadcast the series.
When Cloud 9 asked her to be a
regular in the show, Vanessa originally turned the part down due to
study. However, when offered core cast, she decided to leave Drama
School, and has since return as Alice, featuring prominently in 'The
Tribe Series 2' and 'The Tribe Series 3'.
"Vanessa is so amazingly funny, and so sweet" - Jennyfer
Jewell (Ellie, 'The Tribe')
'The
Tribe' released their debut album earlier in 2001, and Vanessa can
clearly be heard throughout. It is she who backs the rest of the
cast in the final chorus of the album title track "Abe
Messiah", also providing the backing vocals for "Banging
The Drum" and "Beep Beep", with the latter being her
favorite song.
Vanessa appeared on UK's Channel 5
teen block 'The Core' on April 14th, 2001 to promote 'The Tribe'.
Since this, she has done further work for Channel 5, including
co-hosting the Channel 5 Road Show (not broadcast) in the summer of
2001, for which she created a character for an 8 minute stand up
comedy routine.
Also broadcast on Channel 5 is the
children's television show 'Jay Jay The Jet Plane' in which Vanessa
plays the character Brenda Blue, who appears throughout the current
series.
Vanessa has also filmed scenes for
the 3 part film adaptation of JRR Tolkien's 'The Lord Of The
Rings'. Featuring as a guest hobbit in the first in the first
installment 'Fellowship Of The Ring', Vanessa filmed in crowd scenes
at the 111th Birthday party of hobbit Bilbo Baggins, although she
does not appear on screen. She also provided a voice-over for
one of the hobbit children who asks the Wizard Gandalf if he brought
fireworks to The Shire.
For the third and final part of the trilogy, 'Return Of The King',
Vanessa filmed another scene, this time as a human. After
hobbits Frodo and Sam become separated, Frodo finds himself in a
tavern full of humans, and Vanessa questions him about his links to
the One Ring.
Life
During High School, Vanessa was
involved with community theatre groups, debating teams and theatre
sports groups.
After leaving school,
Vanessa completed a hairdressing apprenticeship at a salon called
'Ali Barbers'.
When she was 20, she
owned her own salon, called 'Absolutely Fabulous Hair Design', which
she ran for 8 months until she realized she wanted to act full time.
Vanessa made her first
trip to London (which she describes as being "a lot like a Monopoly
board" in February 2001. Along with promoting 'The Tribe',
she got work in television, theatre and teaching.
In December of the same year, Vanessa attended the London Premier of
international blockbuster 'The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of
The Ring', in which she provided a voiceover. Here Vanessa mingled
with such stars as Elijah Wood (Frodo), Liv Tyler (Arwen), Orlando
Bloom (Legolas), and Sir Ian McKellen (Gandalf). Since
then, Vanessa has continued with part-time teaching, has directed a
few programs for UK television, and been working as a hairdresser in
London. She plans to return to New Zealand early in 2003. |
