Big city Bay girl Teuila Blakely

Signed on for the sequel to hit movie Sione's Wedding, radio, film and television star Teuila Blakely still cherishes memories of her chip-shop childhood in the Bay of Plenty. Julie Jacobson finds out more.

It's hard to imagine Teuila Blakely chowing down on a big feed of fish and chips.
Unlike her scheming Shortland Street character, Vasa Levi, Blakely seems so, well, proper.
But appearances can be deceptive. And Blakely is, she tells me, actually a die-hard fast food fan and not the least averse to a bit of grease dripping down the chin now and again.
The 36-year-old spent her earliest years "out the back", as she puts it, of what were at the time two of Tauranga's best known takeout joints, a kebab and chippie on Cameron Rd and Greerton's Chippawa.
"I'm sure people will remember the fish and chip shop. It was the main takeaway in Tauranga at the time. It was open till two or three in the morning, so everyone would go to the pub and then go down to the takeaway bar. A lot of people will remember my dad, Francis, because he really did make the best fish and chips in Tauranga. They'll be going 'oh that guy... and oh, that's the little girl that used to sit on the counter talking to customers.'
"It's funny because you'd think you'd get sick of that sort of food, but no, I still love a good cheeseburger and chips."
Blakely - whose dulcet voice (she's rapt when I tell her a colleague's husband calls it "sexy") can be heard spruiking the virtues of State Insurance - just got the nod to star in a sequel to hit Kiwi film Sione's Wedding, alongside Robbie Magasiva, Shortland Street's Maxwell Avia. One of five siblings, Blakely grew up in Welcome Bay. Her parents, Francis and mum Martha, were devout Mormons - as were "my entire extended family" - who would turn up like clockwork each week to services at the local Church of Latter Day Saints.
She remembers her childhood as one of blissful innocence speckled with visits to her grandmother in Papamoa, which was then just a tiny seaside settlement. She met her best friend, Keri Collins, on her first day at Tauranga Primary 31 years ago.
"How amazing is that? I love that she has known me my whole life."
Blakely recalls how, when the family moved to Auckland, she was teased about her lack of fashion nous by her big-city cousins. "Tauranga was like a small town back then. Auckland was just so different, not just the landscape but the people. I was this naive kid. I have this vivid memory of my first day at my new school. In Tauranga in those days we used to be dressed in these frilly shirts and these long skirts and socks and shoes - almost like you were dressed for church. I was getting dressed for my first day at school and my cousin kept telling me I shouldn't be dressed like I was, that no one dressed like that in the city and that everyone wore jeans.
"The idea was so foreign to me. I honestly couldn't imagine dressing any other way. When I got to school everyone was in jeans and T-shirts. I wore mine the next day but I had already been branded. It took a while to live that down, but, you know, I loved the small town-ness of the Bay when I was growing up and I think I've retained a lot of it.
"Without a doubt, living there formed me. It's strange but when people find out I'm originally from Tauranga there's this sort of 'oh, that explains it' thing that goes on."
Her conservative upbringing, however, did have its downsides. When Blakely became pregnant with her son Jared at just 16, her mother was so upset the pair didn't speak for 10 years. And although there's been a reconciliation the sadness is still palpable: "It was really difficult for her to handle the fact I was a young, unmarried mum. In the end the first move came from me. I felt like I had to do it for myself. It was about me forgiving her so that it could rest. We get on fine now, it's a really nice relationship..."
And then comes the "but": "You can't ever make up for lost time, so you have to pick it up and there's all that time when my son was very young missing out on the whole grandparent thing."
While Blakely is known for her television and film roles she has only been acting since 2003 - the year she starred in Island Girls, a play she co-wrote with former partner and Sione's Wedding and bro'town creator Oscar Kightley. Before that she enjoyed stints on radio initially on youth radio, then at Flava FM and Pacific Island Network Nui FM and as a television presenter, hosting a music show on C4 for three years.
Kightley and music have both been constants in Blakely's life. She was playing piano by ear at 3 and spent six years, from age 6, being taught privately. She still writes, and occasionally performs, with her own band, Ladi Soul.
"Music is a big passion. I don't have a lot of time to do that these days but I absolutely love it. I play a lot in private. I find it really meditative... I'm not sure the neighbours do."
Kightley is a passion, too, though these days it's on a strictly platonic basis. The pair lived together "years and years" ago, but have remained the best of friends.
"It's just one of those things," says Blakely. "We have an amazing working relationship and a great friendship. Sometimes things just aren't meant to be, but he has definitely been someone I have been able to rely on and I've needed that with the gaps that I've had in my family life."
A brief relationship with West Tigers league player Tame Tupou followed.
These days the only man in her life is Jared, her 19-year-old son, who is "only just" still living at home with mum. Blakely wouldn't have it any other way. She knows he's going to fly the nest shortly, but right now, she says, the pair are great mates.
"I was a young unmarried mother, and I'm still unmarried, but it's all good. It's been tough, without a doubt at times, but it's also a rewarding experience in a lot of ways.
"One of the advantages if you can call it that, because when it comes to parenting I definitely think it would be easier to have a co-parent is that I feel Jared is more free and experienced because we've been alone.
"It can be a magical experience."