Chelsie Preston Crayford’s life in television (Image: Tina Tiller)
Chelsie Preston Crayford’s life in television (Image: Tina Tiller)

Pop CultureNovember 9, 2024

‘Such a thrill’: Chelsie Preston Crayford on seeing a sitcom legend in the flesh

Chelsie Preston Crayford’s life in television (Image: Tina Tiller)
Chelsie Preston Crayford’s life in television (Image: Tina Tiller)

The star of A Remarkable Place to Die reflects on her life in television.

It’s been a big year for Chelsie Preston Crayford, whose previous screen credits include Nude Tuesday, Eagle vs Shark and Underbelly: Razor. In Dark City: The Cleaner, she paced the suburban streets of Christchurch as the maniacal Melissa, a woman who quite literally busted the balls of Cohen Holloway’s Joe Middleton. Then she was off to Queenstown for four months to play Anais Mallory in murder mystery mini-series A Remarkable Place to Die, all while writing the final funding applications for her first feature film, Caterpillar. 

Chelsie Preston Crayford as Detective Anais Mallory

No wonder she found herself in the middle of the woods at night somewhere in Central Otago, realising she should have done some research into how to hold a gun properly. “The problem with being a detective is you have to look really cool,” she laughs. “And I’m quite an uncoordinated person and I suddenly felt very stupid.” Maintaining Mallory’s “straight-laced” persona also posed a challenge in a helicopter scene, where Preston Crayford struggled to “look grumpy”, while also taking in these staggering views of Queenstown. 

While 2024 has brought with it two giant crime-adjacent roles in Melissa and Detective Mallory, Preston Crayford admits she can’t watch anything remotely dark herself, and couldn’t handle Dark City if she hadn’t been in it. “I’m too scared. I’m such a wuss,” she says. “I do like the concept of a murder mystery, but if I have to be by myself at night time, I can’t watch anything that’s remotely scary.” Thankfully, she was brave enough to look back at her life in TV, including a shocking reality moment, seeing a sitcom legend in the flesh, and her journey to hand-acting. 

Chelsie Preston Crayford in Dark City: The Cleaner

My earliest television memory is… When I was maybe three or four years old, I was very obsessed with this VHS that was a first aid video of different dramatisations of emergency scenarios. I remember it so vividly. There was one with a little girl who stood too close to the heater and her nightie caught on fire. There was a guy that was in a tree and he chainsawed his leg, and a family that got lost in the woods. It was all so dramatic and I was completely obsessed with it. I remember my parents eventually confiscating the video, because I think they were like, “this is weird, you can’t watch this anymore,” and putting it on the top shelf. 

The TV show that I would rush home from school to watch is… I used to watch a lot of TV after school because I was the only child of a single mum filmmaker, and I was very obsessed with TV. At one stage it must have gotten out of hand, because I remember my mum saying, “That’s it! only two hours of TV a day!” and me being like “What! that’s only Step by Step and Full House and The Simpsons AND Shortland Street!” I just remember that for a time there was this really great run after school content. 

The Shortland Street cast in 1999

There’s another show I’ve actually referenced in my film called Average Joe Hawaii. There was a woman called Larissa, and she had to choose between 25 average Joes. I remember being sick at home one day and watching the final episode of Average Joe Hawaii. She had finally whittled it down and chosen the last guy, and they went on a tropical holiday. Then she was like, “it’s time for me to reveal the truth about something… I dated Fabio.” 

The man got so angry about it that he rejected her. I just remember lying on the couch in 2003, watching this man stomp down the beach and walk out into the water. It’s just one of those things that’s lived inside me for all these years, because I was just lying on the couch watching it by myself. I remember being just flabbergasted that this was the big twist, and that he’d taken it that way. But I had no one to really share it with, and have just carried it inside me, until one day where it was like, “I am putting that in the movie.” 

The TV moment that haunts me is… When I was 11, I did this TV show called William Shatner’s A Twist in the Tale. It was quite a big deal for me, but I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I got the VHS of it, and I sent it to my dad, and then when I spoke to him on the phone he was like, “it looked like you didn’t know what to do with your hands.” And I didn’t. I didn’t know what to do with my hands. I watched it the other day with [my daughter] Olive because it’s on Amazon Prime now, and I was like “Wow – that girl does not know what to do with her hands.” 

Chelsie Preston Crayford in William Shatner’s a Twist in the Tale. Not pictured: hands

My earliest TV crush is… Probably Suzy Cato. But also maybe Uncle Jesse. I also had posters on the wall of Patrick Swayze.

The NZ TV ad I can’t stop thinking about is… There’s so many great New Zealand ads and I feel like we just don’t make them like we used to. They used to be so elaborate. I think my favourite one is “I’m an Utter Peanut Butter Nutter.” My friend Rose Bollinger was in that – her and I both auditioned for it, and she got it.

My television guilty pleasure is… I watched Paris in Love on a long-haul flight recently, and it was one of the most haunting reality TV shows I’ve ever seen. You really think it is going to be one thing, and then you get this really wild level of insight into this very strange, sometimes very sad existence. I don’t even know if it’s a guilty pleasure. I almost feel guilty at her expense, because all the stuff that you see in it is so personal and revealing. It’s quite full on – at one point in that plane journey, I was just clutching my face and sobbing. 

My favourite TV moment of all time is… I don’t want to give any spoilers, but it happens in the last season of Succession, when they’re on the plane. I think that the writing on Succession is so phenomenal and just like modern Shakespeare. Having that happen to the lead character so early on in the piece, and just knowing the rest of this series was going to be all about the fallout of that one event was so exciting. It was just such visionary writing.

Maggie and Andy in Extras

My favourite TV character of all time is… Maggie in Extras. I just love that she’s such an idiot. She’s such an adorable idiot, and I think she’s such a surprising character to be his sidekick. It’s such a beautiful friendship, and she’s so soft and stupid and so ingeniously funny. 

The most stylish person on television is… Fran Fine. I once watched a live taping of The Nanny. My mum [Gaylene Preston] made a film called War Stories Our Mothers Never Told Us, a documentary about the war stories of these seven women that had lived through World War Two, and we went to LA for a festival screening for it. So I travelled to LA with my mum and this group of women who were in their 70s and 80s, and we stayed at the New Zealand embassy. I was nine years old, and they pulled out all the stops for these women. And so we visited NASA, and did all of these crazy things, and one of them was that we got to go and watch a live taping of The Nanny. At the time it was one of my favourite shows on television, and I was obsessed with Fran Fine, because her outfits were phenomenal. It was such a thrill. That guy that plays Niles the Butler came out and did a whole lot of different accents.

My favourite character I’ve ever played is… I loved playing Melissa in Dark City: The Cleaner, because you just don’t get the opportunity to be that naughty very often. It was quite an unusual opportunity to be a ball-crushing psychopath. I get quite scared of things quite easily, so it was really liberating to be like “Oh, I’m the scary thing” – even if it was just make-believe. 

Chelsie Preston Crayford and Cohen Holloway in Dark City: The Cleaner. Image: Supplied

The TV project I would love to be involved in is… I want to be in Fleabag. I want to play the dorky sister in Fleabag. 

My most controversial TV opinion is… I don’t know if this is controversial, but I think that New Zealand reality television should be its own genre. We’re not big enough to have the level of artifice, or the leap of imagination, that a lot of those shows rely on. We don’t have the budget or the scale to get away with it, but to me that makes it so much more enjoyable. We also don’t have the culture of nastiness and drama. We’re very conflict averse as a nation, so we don’t really have the trappings to make reality TV show in the same way as America. You can see behind the curtain so much more, and I absolutely love that. People like to roll their eyes at local reality TV, but I’m here for it. I think it does something really unique. 

A show that I’ll never watch, no matter how many people tell me I should, is… The Jinx. We had dinner at our friends house and they were talking about how amazing it was, and the first thing I asked was if it was even remotely scary, because I am such a lightweight. They said “no no no” and so we put it on when we got home, and in the first few moments there’s a floating torso, and a guy talking about having to fish it out of the water by the throat. I immediately turned it off. The world is a scary enough place, I do not need that in my imagination.

The last thing I watched on TV was… The finale of Celebrity Treasure Island. It is appointment viewing in our household. I love watching CTI because it’s very rare, as a parent, that you can watch something with your kids and all get equal amounts out of it. And that’s something quite special that show does like nothing else. 

Watch Chelsie Preston Crayford in a Remarkable Place to Die Sundays 7.30pm on TVNZ1, or here on TVNZ+

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Rita Mae picks 10 tunes for a perfect weekend.
Rita Mae picks 10 tunes for a perfect weekend.

Pop CultureNovember 9, 2024

‘So simple, so sweet, so pure’: Rita Mae’s perfect weekend playlist

Rita Mae picks 10 tunes for a perfect weekend.
Rita Mae picks 10 tunes for a perfect weekend.

Singer-songwriter Rita Mae shares her perfect weekend playlist.

“Gritty, bold, and to-the-point” is how Tāmaki Makaurau indie darling Rita Mae describes her upcoming project. The singer-songwriter’s second EP, Kiss the Sky, will be released into the world on November 15.

“[Kiss the Sky is] about desire and greed, it’s about ignoring your better judgement in favour of things that make you feel alive,” Mae says. “I called the project Kiss The Sky because that’s what the whole thing is about – trying to hold beautiful things that are completely unattainable, make them yours, the glory and downfall of that endeavour.”

On the weekend, Mae dreams of a morning in her mum’s Muriwai home, perfected with coffee and brunch made with veges from the garden. “[I’d] laze around all day listening to music loudly; continue to attempt sewing and other various crafts (my ultimate procrastination activity that I also think is quite good for my mental health); cuddle my cat; maybe a walk or some tennis or a swim in the ocean with my partner.”

And no weekend is really complete without spending “a very long time getting ready and putting on a LOT of makeup and [being] reliably late to meet up with friends for drinks and go to a gig on Karangahape Rd”. After that it’s time for the classic 2am kebab, and sleep. Funnily enough, Mae reckons the perfect scenario to listen to her music begs for the same atmosphere: “Putting on your makeup. Driving down the motorway at night on your way to the party. Listening LOUD!”

Here are the 10 tracks, from songs that sound like sunshine to crushing odes to crushes, that make Mae’s weekend perfect.

Dora Jar – ‘No Way To Relax When You Are On Fire’

I love Dora Jar and she must be present during my perfect weekend! The shimmering sunset scene of guitars in this song makes me feel so good. It feels like a really good song about a crush, which is one of my favourite things to write about and listen to.

MGMT – ‘Time To Pretend’

This one is pretty obvious – one of the biggest, hugest bangers ever written. Like, do you not feel FILLED WITH HOPE AND EUPHORIA when you listen to it? People are sleeping on the rest of the MGMT discography though: if you haven’t listened to the Little Dark Age album, you gotta. I think they are quite perfect lyricists on top of all the musical epic-ness.

Nelly Furtado – ‘Say It Right’

A healthy dose of nostalgia is very important to me on a daily basis and especially on the weekend. Her voice cuts like a knife. I honestly am not sure what this song is about but I love that because usually I care so much about the lyrics, but all that matters to me in this song is the vibe. The chorus is so perfect and I have no idea what she’s even talking about.

Porches – ‘I Miss That’

The opening line of this song – “I couldn’t believe what I had, so I threw it away” – hit me so hard the first time I heard it. Porches is one of my favourite artists, I love how elusive and yet also straight to the point his words are.

 Caroline Polachek – ‘So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings’

I love her, I love her, I love her, I love this song. I’ve never heard being into someone be put that way, so hot you’re hurting my feelings. But that’s just so how it feels! I don’t know, I just love when I hear someone paint a familiar feeling in a whole new light.

Hans Pucket – ‘Kiss The Moon’

Hans Pucket is an incredible NZ band, they’ve soundtracked a lot of special moments in my life since I discovered them a few years ago. I love all the subtleties of this song, the gentle guitars and the multi-singer backing vocals. This song just feels like a brain massage.

The Japanese House – ‘Touching Yourself’

I’ve probably listened to this song about a thousand times. It feels so carefully put together, every word carefully written, every instrument carefully selected and made to sound just write, every note carefully placed. It works, it’s like a perfectly baked cake that I want to eat a thousand of!

Florence + The Machine – ‘Free’

Literally can’t listening to this song without jumping around. It makes me feel like I have magical powers and could make sunshine appear with the sheer will of my mind.

Lana Del Rey – ‘Summertime Sadness’

It would not be a perfectly balanced weekend without some Miss Lana! I love this first album, so dark and dramatic and maybe feels like the most concise project she’s made. She’s just got so much swag and this song makes me feel like I’m a star-crossed lover and my soulmate has just left me forever and I’m crying in a really understated and pretty way.

Wilco – ‘Kamera’

This song is pure nostalgia. I don’t know if I love it so much because I heard it so much as a kid or if it’s really that good, but I’m pretty sure it’s really that good. So simple, so sweet, so pure.