The My Dream Green Home host takes us through her life in TV, including her favourite news blooper and the award-winning show she’ll never watch again.
In the lead-up to shooting My Dream Green Home, host Rhiannon McCall had one particular line she had to nail. “I practised it so much” she says of the tongue-twister show title. “I’m very well practised now. I can’t quite do it full speed, but at least medium speed.” But when they began filming, McCall found a new challenger to get her mouth around – “sus-tain-a-bil-it-y and sus-tain-ab-ly” she says slowly. “Gets me every time.”
They are both words that appear extremely often in My Dream Green Home, TVNZ’s latest home renovation show with an eco-friendly twist. Helping families out across the country to achieve their sustainability goals at home, McCall says the series was a “feel-good experience” from start to finish. “I love all of the worst and most manipulative reality television shows, but I feel kind of guilty watching them. I like that this is genuinely trying to make a positive change.”
Travelling across the country exploring everything from food forests to electric cars, McCall loved meeting all the people looking to make the world a better and more sustainable place. “I love to talk, I love to chat, so it all came quite naturally to me,” she says. It also helped that she’d been cutting her teeth as a reporter for Seven Sharp, as well as being a wise-cracking panellist on comedy shows such as 7 Days and Have You Been Paying Attention.
Proud to represent the people in the audience who are “still learning along the way”, McCall says filming the series has inspired her to make changes in her own life. “I did end up examining a lot of things that I did. You don’t have to immediately throw out your car or give away little luxuries, but you can start using a keep cup for your takeaway coffees. I have also started trying to grow my own herbs at home,” she says. “But they do die a lot.”
My earliest television memory is… The Wiggles. I loved Jeff. My dad’s name is Jeff, and so I loved to pull a “wake up Jeff”. Loved Dorothy the Dinosaur as well, queer icon.
The show that you would rush home from school to watch was… Me and my brother were definitely too young for it, but we used to zoom home on our scooters after school to watch Home and Away. Instead of sitting on the sofa, we’d drag the coffee table forward right up to the TV and be seated, waiting for Home and Away.
The TV moment that haunts me is… Do you remember that drinking ad where the guy swings the child round and round and lets go, and they smash into the bookcase? It’s so traumatic. I hated it, and I remember every time it came on, I’d be scared. I hated watching it, I hated feeling guilty for this drunk man, it was all just so traumatic. I hated the whole thing.
My earliest TV crush was… I had a crush on the brother from Hannah Montana, because he was so kooky and funny and kind of mischievous. I think he was probably in his 30s when he played that role. Also evil Shego from Kim Possible.
My TV guilty pleasure is… I’m not guilty about it, but I’ve seen every episode of The Vampire Diaries. I really love the Vampire Diaries. And I also love Love Island, Love is Blind, Love on the Spectrum. Any TV show with the word “love” in the title and real people in it? I’m there.
My favourite TV moment of all time is… I love news bloopers. One of them happens during a news story from the States where they’re describing a criminal on the loose. His name is Rodney Stanger, and he’s been accused of abducting a girl who was on lifeguard duty. It’s really grim, really serious, and they’re like “we have a picture of him now” and it cuts to a placeholder picture of a guinea pig. I also love jetpack fail.
My favourite TV character of all time is… I love Maura from Love Island. I loved when she did that iconic monologue after she overheard a dude wondering if she was all mouth. She pops off and goes [slips into Irish accent] “you tink I’m going to sleep wit you now?” That would probably actually be one of my favourite TV moments too.
The most stylish person on television… This feels like a cop out, because she’s my friend, but Hayley Sproull dresses so cool. I feel like she’s had a bit of a fashion revolution recently where she is wearing a lot of black, and is dressing very cool and edgy with the Docs and the pink hair.
My favourite show I’ve ever worked on… I would say it’s definitely My Dream Green Home. The crew were all so nice, and I learned so much about sustainability and renovation that I feel like I’m a fully fledged builder and landscaper now. The families were really lovely, and it was a really feel-good experience. After that, it would probably be Funny Girls, RIP. I was just working with a lot of friends and a lot of like, heavy swinging comedy legends, and we just got to do silly, funny sketches and dress up in cool costumes and laugh all the time.
A TV show you wish you could have been involved in is… I would love to be in a gritty drama, like One Lane Bridge, or Top of the Lake.
The funniest TV show of all time is… Late Night Big Breakfast is pretty iconic and extremely funny. That would be up there. I feel unpatriotic choosing something that isn’t from New Zealand, but I do laugh a lot at the American Office. I also really laughed at the first season of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, but then the rest of the seasons weren’t as strong.
My controversial television opinion is… I think the news should still be on TV, which feels like a controversial thing to say at the moment. We need New Zealand-based current affairs and New Zealand content. I also don’t think you’re edgy if you hate Shortland Street. People think it’s pretty cool to bash on Shortland Street, but it’s such an important show with such an incredible legacy that gives so many people jobs. I also don’t think streaming platforms should give space to transphobic comedians.
A show I will never watch, no matter how many people tell me to watch it is… I’ve watched episode one of Succession, and it made me really sad. I didn’t like how mean they were to each other. There was that one scene where he says to this young boy, “I’ll give you a million dollars if you make this home run”, and he doesn’t. I hated it, I’ll never watch it again.
The last thing that you watched on TV was… Kid Sister with Simone Nathan and Paul Williams on TVNZ+. I binge watched the whole thing, it’s so funny and there are so many good actors in it. Fantastic show, highly recommended.