spinofflive
Zoë Robins, the New Zealand actor who stars as Nynaeve in Amazon’s new series The Wheel of Time. (Photo: Amazon Prime Video, Getty; Image Design: Tina Tiller)
Zoë Robins, the New Zealand actor who stars as Nynaeve in Amazon’s new series The Wheel of Time. (Photo: Amazon Prime Video, Getty; Image Design: Tina Tiller)

Pop CultureNovember 20, 2021

The Wheel of Time’s Zoë Robins was already a star

Zoë Robins, the New Zealand actor who stars as Nynaeve in Amazon’s new series The Wheel of Time. (Photo: Amazon Prime Video, Getty; Image Design: Tina Tiller)
Zoë Robins, the New Zealand actor who stars as Nynaeve in Amazon’s new series The Wheel of Time. (Photo: Amazon Prime Video, Getty; Image Design: Tina Tiller)

Three years ago it was announced that New Zealand actor Zoë Robins would be taking on a lead role in Amazon’s massive production of The Wheel of Time. Now, finally, the series has arrived on screen. Sam Brooks talked to her on the eve of its debut.

It’s early morning at the Four Seasons Hotel in Prague and Zoë Robins is in full wardrobe, hair and makeup. She’s in the Czech Republic filming season two of a behemoth Amazon series that is pitched to run for up to eight seasons. I, meanwhile, am sitting in my dark Auckland apartment at 10pm, bleary eyed, wearing a presentable dress shirt over yoga pants and staring at her in a Zoom thumbnail. Six Zoom squares sit between ours, all publicists with their cameras turned off, eyes on the clock to make sure we don’t go over time. I’m one of many journalists that Robins will talk to today.

If it wasn’t abundantly clear already: her role in The Wheel of Time is a big deal.

We check off a few names before we get into the interview proper: The Actors’ Program (where she studied), The Basement (where she hung out), actor Michele Hine (who was and remains her mentor). When some New Zealand actors make it big, you often feel like they cut off their roots. The opposite is true of Robins, who hails from Lower Hutt. She’s deeply aware not just of the part these places and these people have played in her life, but how much it would mean to them to be acknowledged. She delights in doing so.

Robins is also deeply aware this role isn’t just a once in a lifetime opportunity. It’s something that makes her a rarity among New Zealand actors. “Just to be involved in something like this is something that us Kiwis back home can only dream of,” she says. “It’s very rare and there’s so many talented, amazing, special artists that would kill to work on something like this.

“I still pinch myself every day.”

Zoë Robins as Nynaeve in Amazon Prime Video’s The Wheel of Time. (Photo: Amazon Prime Video)

The Wheel of Time, written by Robert Jordan, is one of the biggest fantasy book series of all time, and has been described as a proto-Game of Thrones: there’s magic, there’s dragons, and there’s a big ol’ quest right at the middle of it. While there have been several attempts to adapt it, it took until 2017 for Amazon to greenlight a pilot. As a show of confidence, the streaming service renewed it for a second season a full six months before the first season even premiered.

The role of Nynaeve, a respected village leader despite her youth, initially came to Robins just like any other one: another email for an audition. Before she landed the role she was auditioning five to six times a week, sometimes even three times a day. She was offered the option to audition for both Nynaeve and Egwene (played in the series by Australian actress Madeleine Madden). In a choice that speaks to the work ethic that her teachers and mentors laud her for, she auditioned for both.

About a week later, she was on a Skype call – which shows you how long ago this was – with series showrunner Rafe Judkins. They spoke for an hour about the character, the story and his ideas for the series. “He was using vocabulary that I had to mentally ignore. He was saying stuff like, ‘you know when you’re in Prague and when we do this’. I just had to ignore it.

“I did have a little feeling that it was set in stone very early on, which was wonderful. I still have moments where I’m like, how is this my life?”

Zoë Robins with her fellow Power Rangers in Power Rangers: Ninja Steel. (Photo: supplied)

While The Wheel of Time is the first series of this scale that Robins has worked on, she’s been a fairly consistently working actor since 2014. She starred in Power Rangers: Ninja Steel, had roles on Shortland Street, The Shannara Chronicles and The Brokenwood Mysteries, and was cast on an ABC pilot directed by Regina King back in 2018. 

Despite all those roles, it’s something else that she mentions as giving her the confidence to take on a role like Nynaeve: The Actor’s Program, an Auckland acting school. “Each day I would walk into the studios and just be petrified as to what was coming,” she says. “But that’s just a wonderful way to get used to the fear, the unknown and the unpredictable nature of this industry.”

Which brings the conversation to Michele Hine. A tremendous actor in her own right, Hine was artistic manager at The Actor’s Program until last year. Robins mentions her several times in our interview, always with a smile, as someone who has been in her corner from the very beginning.

Hine returns Robins’ effusiveness. “She was always truthful, and sat easily in her character’s reality, but what blossomed over her year with us was her connection, trust and joy. It was like watching a beautiful flower open, and she gained confidence in herself and others and that glorious smile of hers got wider and wider.”

Go back even further, to Robins’ stint at Long Cloud Youth Theatre Company, where many of New Zealand’s finest actors got their start, and that talent was already visible. Former Long Cloud artistic director Stella Reid, who taught Robins and directed her in several shows, also speaks highly of her. “I forget that my working relationship with Zoë was so long ago,” she says. “She certainly seemed older than her 18 years at the time, and she operates with the exact same level of professionalism in any interaction I’ve had with her since.

“Even from a young age she had a big gravitational pull, and I watched a lot of people happy to orbit around her.”

Zoë Robins as Nynaeve and Madeleine Madden as Egwene. (Photo: Amazon Prime Video)

While her list of previous acting credits sounds like a dream for most actors in New Zealand, where “consistent employment” usually involves a show whose title rhymes with “Bortland Beet”, Robins has still had to fight to keep on going. She’s a woman of colour in an industry where our breakout female actors – Lucy Lawless, Melanie Lynskey, Anna Paquin, Thomasin McKenzie, to name a few – are overwhelmingly white. Keisha Castle-Hughes, Academy Award nominee, Game of Thrones player and current lead of a Dick Wolf drama, is the exception that proves the rule.

The scale of the opportunity presented by her Wheel of Time role – a lead role on a massive fantasy show with a huge inbuilt fan base, and another season already confirmed – is not lost on her. “I think it’s validation for a lot of us actors, and also New Zealanders, that it can happen. I think it’s also nice to feel like my persistence paid off. There were definitely times where I was like, ‘OK Zoë, what are you doing?’

“I could definitely feel that energy from family and friends, coming from a place of concern and love, but [in an] artist’s career and livelihood, there’s no guarantees of anything. Even after The Wheel of Time, I’m not sure what I’ll be doing next. So I’m just taking it day by day – with the knowledge that this is incredibly special and a wonderful gift.”

Robins is an actor who, for all her talent, seems to have forced the stars into alignment through sheer willpower alone. “There were moments of questioning and self-doubt, but I think I’ve always held onto the possibility that this could all happen. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but I was certain that I just had to keep persevering.

“I’ve always said to myself I’ll stop if I don’t enjoy it anymore, but it’s my dream.”

Late in the first season of Wheel of Time, Nynaeve has to be convinced to take up the call to adventure. The characters who come to her, Moiraine (Rosamund Pike) and Siuan (Sophie Okonedo), are two Aes Sedai, powerful women who can call upon magic to keep the world’s darkness in check. 

Since the explosive events of the pilot episode, Nynaeve has had to leave her village, chase after her friends and deal with several lifetimes’ worth of arduous shit. She’s tired, but she’s resolute. She is not going to be walked over by these two sorceresses just because they have grand ideas for her. Robins taps into all of these emotions and comes thrillingly close to stealing the scene entirely away from her two Oscar-nominated screen partners. 

In that moment, Nynaeve and Robins are the same: women embarking on one of the biggest adventures of their life, staring it straight in the face and saying: “Bring it.”

Keep going!
Home Breew
Second-hand copies of Home Brew’s EP Last Week is demanding big bucks on vinyl. Image: Tina Tiller

Pop CultureNovember 20, 2021

‘People froth it’: Inside the craze for Aotearoa’s most sought-after record

Home Breew
Second-hand copies of Home Brew’s EP Last Week is demanding big bucks on vinyl. Image: Tina Tiller

Home Brew’s debut EP has sparked a craze amongst collectors who are willing to pay big bucks for it. How high will they go?

Real Groovy, Tāmaki Makaurau’s most recognisable record store, is where the year’s first sale was made. A second-hand copy of Last Week, the debut EP from Tom Scott’s Aotearoa rap trio Home Brew, was up for sale. Written and recorded in a quickfire two weeks, the celebrated seven-track record was initially released in 2010, including a limited edition vinyl pressing.

Now, that record, and its songs, ‘Monday,’ ‘Tuesday,’ ‘Wednesday,’ ‘Thursday,’ ‘Friday,’ ‘Saturday,’ and, ‘Sunday,’ is collecting big bucks. When it was first released, it cost just $23.95 on vinyl. But someone rifling through Real Groovy’s crates earlier this year found a second-hand copy for sale, and snapped it up. “It went for $250,” confirms the store’s owner, Chris Hart.

That’s close to a 1000% increase. Yet, in the months since then, Hart thinks its value has climbed even higher. “I’m sure it’s worth more than that now,” he says.

He’s right. In August, a few weeks into the most recent level four lockdown, a member of the group, Harry ‘Haz Beats’ Huavi, who crafted the album’s summery soundscapes, sold his own copy for $400 via Instagram Stories. “I needed some money,” he says. “I didn’t get the [government] subsidy.”

Huavi has another copy in his possession, but he’s keeping that, and regrets selling the first. He thinks he could have got more for it. “Every month I’ll get a ‘waxhead’ [vinyl collector] hitting me up,” he says. “I might just hold onto it.”

trademe
Home Brew’s Last Week comes with blue vinyl and artwork by Guy Brock. (Image via Trade Me)

It’s a good idea. Just a few weeks later, on October 8, another copy – “KEPT IN PLASTIC COVER FOR ITS ENTIRE LIFE; A SIDE, PLAYED ONCE, B SIDE NEVER PLAYED” – was sold on Trade Me for $754. This one included an added bonus of the original purchase price, a Real Groovy sticker for “$23.95.”

That information fired up at least one viewer of the auction, who asked the seller: “What percentage of this Trade Me sale is going towards the artists?” The seller replied: “When you sell a house, do you give a % of your profit to the person who built it?”

The auction caught the attention of someone else. On Twitter, Home Brew’s outspoken front man Tom Scott suggested the seller — a Trade Me user who went by the name ‘scottmac3’ — might be former Warner Music New Zealand boss Scott Maclachlan, Lorde’s ex manager, who left his job after years of “harassing behaviour” was exposed by Alison Mau in the Sunday Star-Times.

The Spinoff tried, but wasn’t able to confirm this.

On Twitter, Scott called the seller a “prick”.

But that wasn’t the end of it. Demand kept rising. So did prices. In response to the $754 sale, Spinoff contributor Dan Taipua listed his copy of Last Week — “Complete and unplayed (with) a tiny ding in the top-left corner” — and promised to donate all proceeds to the City Mission.

After 61 bids, it sold, on October 21, for $1310 – a 5000% increase on the original retail price. Trade Me refunded his success fee so it could all go to charity. A clearly shellshocked Taipua thanked “all of Home Brew Crew” on Twitter after the listing closed. “They made a record to stand the test of time.”

Forlorn fans hunting for their own copy have turned to Discogs, the website where collectors buy and sell rare vinyl. “No one messages me yet? Still chasing for months now!” writes one on a message board. “Msg me if you have this for sale and if we can work something out!” says another. Last Week’s last confirmed sale on Discogs was for $521.04. A wait list of 215 people have indicated they want a copy. Only 200 exist.

The craze hasn’t stopped there. Two weeks after Taipua’s charity auction, another seller attempted to list a signed, second-hand copy of Last Week — “Autographed … stain on the bottom right corner of the cover” — for $10,000. It is, the seller says, his most precious possession.

Last Week was made during a burst of creativity in 2010. According to Sam Wicks’ in-depth report on the EP’s creation for The Spinoff, Scott had been ripping Huavi’s beats from MySpace and rapping over them. “When I first heard his rhymes I was like, ‘How is he not one of my friends?'” Huavi told Wicks. “‘How have we not crossed paths and created music together?'”

They soon would. In a “piece of shit washhouse” turned into a studio in a Sandringham flat, the trio, including MC Lui Gumaka, crafted everyday events — buying liquor from a nearby Pak N Save, and cigarettes at the local dairy — into compelling stories full of mundane detail. One night, Gumaka got hit by a courier van and woke up in hospital. That became the song ‘Wednesday’.

“The next day I wrote about what happened to us [on] Thursday,” Scott said, “and then the Friday, till we had this whole week’s worth of work.”

They named each song after a day of the week, and called their EP Last Week. In less than two weeks, it was done. A few days later, once songs were mastered, Home Brew released them, for free download, across the internet, spreading word by spamming MySpace and hiphopnz.com forums.

It quickly blew up. “People just started relating to it and I guess it was because it was unfiltered and it was relatable,” Scott said. “We were just telling our story and in doing so accidentally telling everyone else’s.”

A few weeks later, the trio argued about doing something special to release their EP properly. In an age dominated by CDs, they considered releasing Last Week on cassette tape to give fans something physical to hold. Instead, they decided a limited edition vinyl release would do the trick. Home Brew pressed just 200 of them, and offered them for sale in early November 2010. “We knew they would sell,” Huavi told me.

What they didn’t know was, 10 years later, just how in-demand they would become.

Esoligh has debts. The North Shore musician, who asked for his full name not to be revealed in this story, is worried about debt collectors knocking at his door. He even owes money to Huavi, for beats supplied for an upcoming album he’s working on. “I pay him painfully, $25 a week,” he says, “when I can afford it.”

That’s why he initially listed his copy of Last Week on Trade Me for $10,000. That amount would clear his debt and help fund studio time to record new music. “I was like, ‘What’s my most precious and valuable taonga that I can shift?’ It’s [Last Week],” he says. “If I don’t sell this I’m going to go bankrupt.”

He’s been criticised for the price, but doesn’t think that’s fair. Esoligh bought his copy of Last Week for $40 directly from Scott. To pay for it, he scrimped on food, and skipped a couple of meals. Later, he asked Scott to sign the vinyl protective sleeve in bright yellow vivid. It’s still there, along with the words, “For Esoligh,” and “Home Brew YGB,” the letters standing for Scott’s old record label, Young Gifted & Broke.

Still, $10,000 seems unlikely. Esoligh bristled when someone called him the “Shkreli of New Zealand hip-hop,” a reference to Martin Shkreli, the “Pharma-bro” who used funds made by hiking the price of life-saving drugs to purchase Wu-Tang Clan’s one-of-a-kind album, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.

trademe
An auction for Home Brew’s EP Last Week asks for $10,000. Image: Trade Me

He doesn’t want to sell the record, but money talks, and Esoligh is desperate. “This represents what it means to me – not what it’s worth,” he says. During our interview, he expressed doubts, telling me: “I don’t want to sell it.” But, last Friday night, he lowered the price and let it go for $900, plus $12 postage. He pledged to give a third of that to Huavi to pay off his beat debt.

Ask any local hip-hop fan why Last Week is demanding such high prices, and they’ll all say the same thing. “That cat’s a genius, straight up,” says Esoligh about Scott. He’s not the only one who thinks that. While Scott has a new project these days, the jazz-rap collective Avantdale Bowling Club, and Huavi’s an in-demand producer, Home Brew still tours, often playing summer festivals together.

While they’ve released plenty of new music since 2010, including a full-length double album, it’s the songs from Last Week that crowds go craziest for. “I don’t need to do any of the words because the fans are pretty much singing the whole song,” says Huavi about Home Brew’s live performances. He sees fans in the crowd so young they would have been little kids when Last Week came out. “People froth it.” Those songs stand the test of time.

Unlike Scott, Huavi doesn’t mind seeing Last Week being resold by people like Esoligh. “If it’s going to make you that much money, why not?” he says. “In these sorts of times, money’s pretty scarce.” It’s ironic that the EP’s pink cover art, drawn by the artist Guy Brock, depicts Scott as a Mer-man clutching a wad of bank notes.

But Huavi has a warning: lately, he and Scott have been discussing re-pressing Last Week, potentially dampening all that enthusiasm from the big spenders desperate to nab a copy for themselves.

“Maybe we’ll do speckled vinyl with new artwork,” Huavi suggests. “I’ll talk to Tom. Who knows man!”

Read more: Want your favourite album on vinyl? It’s probably sold out

But wait there's more!