Sproull is the first to admit she’s an unlikely character to be leading the charge on a new branch of economics.
“Look, I didn’t take economics at high school. I sort of went towards the arty stuff. But that’s exciting for me,” Sproull says.
Sproull, who grew up in Wellington, says her parents were both pretty good with money.
“I remember thinking I was rich,” she recalls.
“My family definitely wasn’t rich - my mum worked in real estate, and my dad ran a finance company. He came home once with a second-hand Honda Legend and there was a sticker on it that said ‘Car of the Year 1999′, or something like that, and it had leather seats. He pulled up in the driveway and we came down from our house and sat in the back, and I remember this penny dropping in my head. I was like: ‘I think we might be mega-rich’.”
Sproull didn’t follow her parents into business; she found herself thriving and succeeding in the arts.
“I was a ballet girl as a kid, then I got into marching, which was quite performative. I learned piano from a young age, and then I just had this really big extroverted attention-seeking personality that was like - there was no other path.”
“I was performing off-stage as well. If you read my reports from school, it’s just like, ‘Attention-seeker, distracting, class clown, spends too much time being the class clown’.”
All that enthusiasm for performing paid off, though. Sproull was selected for the New Zealand secondary school Shakespeare programme and studied at the Globe in London. (Her favourite play is Richard III, for the record).
She then went on to prestigious drama school, Toi Whakaari.
“I was like, ‘I think I want to be a Shakespearean actor’. I love the text, and I love English and the performance of it, the weight and style,” she said.
“And then I got to drama school and I realised I wasn’t actually that good. And I was like, ‘Oh no, this is terrible. I’ve really put all my eggs in this basket’.”
There was no plan B, Sproull says.
Apart from part-time work with her dad’s firm, she admits she’s never really had a regular job.
“I was quite determined. I was like, ‘Oh, I’m not going to get any work’. So I just ended up making a bunch of work.”
Sproull began producing her own comedy shows. She eventually got a chance to do some writing for TV3′s show Jono and Ben.
She packed up and moved to Auckland, a part-time contractual arrangement.
But guest appearances and more writing followed. She got more TV work and realised she had a strong skill set as a presenter.
“Because it’s New Zealand, you have to keep pivoting,” she says.
“Like you can’t just go, ‘No, I’m not going to do anything else but acting or comedy’. I didn’t want to be a TV host. I had no aspiration for that. But when it came up, I was like, ‘You know what? I’m really like, I’m really good at comedy, running a room. I’m really good at talking to people. It’s entertainment’.”
“So you kind of have to diversify, otherwise you just won’t survive.”
“Use the thing that you love the most, which for me is entertaining people, and bring it into that,” she says.
“I definitely had a crisis when I was like, ‘I don’t think I’m an actor anymore’, but I still feel immensely fulfilled and I’m still doing the main job, which is entertaining people and making them laugh.”
Listen to the full episode to hear more from Sproull about her early life, career and relationship with money. Tickets for Sproull’s Comedy Festival show, Wild Flutters, are available here.
Money Talks is a podcast run by the NZ Herald. It isn’t about personal finance and isn’t about economics - it’s just well-known New Zealanders talking about money and sharing some stories about the impact it’s had on their lives and how it has shaped them.
The series is hosted by Liam Dann, business editor-at-large for the Herald. He is a senior writer and columnist, and also presents and produces videos and podcasts. He joined the Herald in 2003.
Money Talks is available on iHeartRadio, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
