Living dangerously

Shortland Street actress Toni Potter. Photo / Janna Dixon

Toni Potter takes a deep drag of her cigarette and a swig of chardonnay. It's, well, very Alice - the fun-loving, hard-partying nurse Potter plays on Shortland Street. "There's a lot of Alices out there," grins Potter, who's sipping and yakking before heading home from Shortland Street central, South Pacific Pictures' Henderson studios.

Three years ago, Potter joined the perennially-popular soap in what at first looked like the somewhat stock role of the good-time-girl nurse who's up for some doctor dating (remember how Chris' exes Tiffany and Toni started out?). But Alice emerged as poles apart from her party-loving predecessors: as a brash, straight-talking tough nut with a shoot-from-the-hip style - and some of the best lines in the show. "Alice is a bit bogan, a bit loud-mouth, she likes to drink and have fun," says Potter, "but you can't really put her in a particular box because so much has happened to her."

Alice is certainly having a hell of a year. After nurses started dropping like flies courtesy of the Ferndale serial killer, Alice was abducted by the culprit - fellow nurse Joey Henderson - who kept her in a storage unit for three days, removed her appendix and tried to strangle her. With typical Alice smarts (and the aid of boyfriend Dr Craig Valentine) she escaped, subsequently returning to work too soon and turning to alcohol to numb the pain.

Next up was a drunken encounter with bad boy Guy Warner, an unexpected pregnancy, and a who's-the-daddy dilemma.

After confessing her fling and agreeing to marry Craig, Alice roped him into doing a cash-sweetened interview about her escape - but when the reporter threw in unwelcome questions, Craig walked out and took off to Australia. Reconciling herself to solo motherhood, Alice called it quits with Craig on his return - then developed pre-eclampsia and went to stay with her mother out of town.

Right, spoiler alert: tomorrow Alice returns to our screens hoping for a reconciliation with Craig, when a major trauma propels her into early labour.

Phew - it's tiring just thinking about it all. "How many bad things can happen to one person?" Potter grins. "Incident after incident after incident with no slowdown in between - it's made the year go quickly!"

Laidback with a slightly self-deprecatory air, glowing green eyes, a smattering of freckles and fringed cowboy boots, Potter has the refreshing quality of being able to laugh at herself.

Much like Alice. "Alice is more like I was when I was in my late teens, early 20s," says Potter, 29. "We've both got a bit of a smart mouth ... but no, I don't drink," she deadpans over her chardonnay. "I'm actually not an alcoholic," she says. "Everybody does look like alcoholics on the show - we're always at the bar."