Louise Wallace shows her softer side on Street Legal

By GREG DIXON

Street Legal star Louise Wallace swears she's not scary. Seated in a tiny, shadowy room at the Auckland offices of the local legal drama's production company ScreenWorks, she smiles her pleasant smile and professes complete surprise that people might see her that way. But it seems I'm not the only one with this theory.

"I was at a fund-raising ball recently," she says, "and one of the guys at this ball got quite drunk and came up to me and said [she adopts an inebriated male's voice] 'You know, you come across as the ice princess, bit scary'. I thought where's this going and he said, 'You know, I challenge every woman in this room to do what you do, you do a bloody good job'.

"I thought oh well, I presume that's a compliment. But it was interesting because this guy was a tough guy, a tough sort of businessman. I thought it was interesting that that's how he sees me.

"Well, there is more than a little evidence for the prosecution. As Street Legal's Judge Adie Saunders, Wallace plays someone who isn't beyond barking from the bench. Indeed, Wallace has said in the past she believes people are a bit daunted by Adie, who can be "a real cow".

Then, of course, there was her time as a TV current-affairs reporter on those tough-nut current-affairs shows, 60 Minutes and 20/20. And there was her stint as a sort of Madame Lash on The Weakest Link, the game show-cum-shame show, where Wallace would humiliate contestants who gave incorrect answers before telling them "[insert fool's name], you are the weakest link, goodbye".

Surely any court in the land would convict her for scariness, then? Well perhaps not, not after hearing the defendant's story.

"[On 60 Minutes and 20/20] I wasn't really a hard reporter. I left the hard stuff to the others who enjoyed it more. I enjoyed getting to the heart and soul of people more than really ripping the bejesus out of them.

"With The Weakest Link, sometimes before we went on I thought how am I going to rip these people apart, I've never met them before, the poor souls. I can't say I enjoyed it. I liked the idea that I was basically making up the script.

"That was the real challenge, to come back, off the cuff, with these one-liners. I said in the press it was all scripted because I didn't want people to think I'd be such a cow off the cuff. And actually insulting people I'd never met, and who were really quite sweet, I didn't enjoy.

"Even the Street Legal judge has gone soft, she says. Indeed, we won't see Judge Adie in court at all in the new, fourth series, which returns to TV2 next Thursday following on from Adie's "weeping and wailing", as Wallace puts it, in the last series.

In fact Wallace enjoys playing Adie when this other side, the soft side, comes out.

"I like the fact she's deeply flawed, she's very much like me. Without sounding completely up myself, I didn't find her that difficult to play. Friends asked whether I'd written the script because half the lines were me. I'm not sure whether that was a compliment or not. But I do like Adie as a person.

"I relish the opportunity to become a gibbering, emotional, vulnerable mess because it actually shows I can act, that I've got range, because it's really easy to play a staunch cow."

And acting seems to be Wallace's first and truest love, despite her time presenting, reporting and doing Madame Lash impersonations.

As a child, she hankered to train for the craft at a top English drama school and in the early 1980s she went to London to study at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, also gaining her ATCL Speech & Drama at Trinity College.

Instead of returning to New Zealand after finishing, she headed for Australia to join her then-boyfriend. There were bit parts in a few Aussie television dramas, including Hospital. But the acting work wasn't enough to keep a healthy bank account and she soon chanced her arm on journalism and presenting, working initially as a sports reporter and presenter for the ABC, followed by Network 10's Just For the Record as writer, presenter and director.

On her return to New Zealand in 1989, she became a news and current affairs presenter for TV3 and TVNZ prime time shows, including Inside New Zealand, Destination Planet Earth, Ansett Time of Your Life, TV3 Sports, 60 Minutes and 20/20. She was also anchor for TV3 News.As well, she presented Whose House is it Anyway?, Kiwi Flatmates, America's Cup Women Yachties and The Weakest Link.

At present she is researching, writing and presenting Health Matters, a weekly health show for National Radio.

Street Legal hasn't been the only recent acting stint either. Wallace played in a couple United States productions, Atomic Twister and Power Rangers' Ninja Storm, that were filmed in New Zealand.

Such versatility, the ability to present and write and act, has been key to making a crust for Wallace, who now freelances.

"I don't know whether I'll get such another long-term role like Adie in New Zealand, or play such a fantastic character. I just hope I've got further opportunities down the track.

"But I would hate to have to rely on acting as my sole income. You can't in this country or any other country — unless you're a big star."

Or maybe genuinely scary.