Robyn Malcolm: My story as told to Elisabeth Easther

Robyn Malcolm. Photo / Supplied

Robyn Malcolm first found fame in the 1990s, playing Nurse Ellen Crozier on Shortland Street. Following that, the role of Cheryl West on Outrageous Fortune saw her popularity soar. Malcolm has since worked steadily onscreen and onstage, both in New Zealand and abroad, with roles in major productions including Rake, Top of The Lake and Black Bird with Ray Liotta.

Early memories often feel like a series of snapshots, and when I think about my time at Parklands Primary in Motueka, I still see myself walking to school every day in bare feet. Rain, hail or shine. In my first week of primary school, I also made a new friend who encouraged me to run across the road because there were cakes on a table on the other side. I had no idea it was a church stall. Plates of coconut rough and lamingtons were placed at eye height and we each shoved a cake into our gobs, then ran back to school. Back in the classroom, faces full of stolen sponge with cream around our mouths, I can still see the whites of Miss Black’s eyes. We were threatened with the strap and I had to write a letter of apology to the church. My father took away the new rubber he had given me, too, because I was a dirty rotten criminal. It was aquamarine with white in the centre, so very special, but after I wrote the apology, I got the rubber back.

I think about menopause a lot these days. I also think about the old b**ches who taught us when I was at school. They were terrifying women who did things you’d be arrested for now. One particular teacher in Ashburton – we moved there when I was 9 - she used to lock kids in cupboards, or pick them up by the hair. I used to think of those teachers as furious old bags, but now I suspect they were all menopausal.

The closest I got to a crush at school was Leonard Whiting from Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet. Maybe it was because I grew up in a family of girls that I was quite thrown by boys. Then at intermediate school, I didn’t see boys as being very nice, because that’s when some boys started setting upon girls, pushing them into the back of the cloakroom to feel them up. Sometimes the girls would laugh and pretend it was okay but obviously it wasn’t.

I was very fortunate to have a safe family life. We were four girls and a mum and a dad, and every summer we went on camping trips where we’d fish and romp and go out on boats. It was the perfect life for a tomboy, yet by 12 I started to develop an eating disorder so I dealt with my teens by entering the world of creativity, of photography, orchestras, choirs, painting and sewing, of Shakespeare and poetry. Mum also taught me to bake, and when I had the eating disorder I became a bit of an obsessive baker. I wouldn’t eat what I baked, but I baked a lot.

It took me a good 10 years to beat the eating disorder, and I did it partly by taking up smoking when I was 19. Cigarettes seemed to take the edge off everything, because nicotine puts a dampener on feelings. Very quickly, I became a hardcore nicotine addict with many people saying I was one of the most confirmed smokers they’d ever known. I smoked with everything. In the mornings. In the bath. In bed. It never occurred to me that I was being absolutely disgusting until Craig Parker introduced me to Allen Carr’s Easy Way To Stop Smoking. That book helped me see that I didn’t really love smoking. It was just that my body had become addicted to a chemical. When I got my head around that, I was able to let it go.

I’m currently filming a series called After the Party and I’m working with lots of young actors, and they’ve reminded me how essential it is to have an unshakeable belief in yourself and your abilities at the start of your career. Otherwise, you’ll get smashed by the industry really fast. My level of confidence back when I was that age - you could call it arrogance - was far greater than the confidence I have now. I absolutely thought I could do anything back then, and I’d be appalled when I wasn’t cast in a role. But instead of doubting myself, I would doubt the ability of the casting people, because to survive in this business, you have to have incredible confidence, otherwise it’s torture.

Living a creative life is a huge privilege and a great joy. Although there’s also only so much rejection a person can handle, so I reached a point where I stopped calling it rejection. It’s so easy to take it personally when you don’t get an acting job, but a big part of the actor’s job is auditioning for roles, and you can’t live like that. So over the years I’ve become much more philosophical. It’s no longer a matter of life and death when I don’t get a job, which is how it felt when I was 21. I also say no a lot more now too, as it’s not only an employer’s choice when I get to work, it’s my choice. Saying no has made a massive difference.

My mum was in the CCTV building when the big February earthquake hit Christchurch. She worked for Relationship Services as a marriage guidance counsellor and their offices were on the top floor, although she wasn’t meant to be at work that day. She was home baking scones when she remembered she had a meeting, so she left the dough on the bench and drove Hyacinth, her little purple hatchback, into the city. The quake struck during the meeting and she was hit on the back of the head by a cabinet. She then recalls a weird dissonance, as if she was floating down, while the noise was like being inside a concrete mixer. Buried beneath a lot of rubble, her ribs were broken and when she took a breath everything hurt. She could only call out once to say she was there. Then she heard a woman call her name. Annie! Annie! And mum was pulled out and taken to triage in Latimer Square.

I flew down the next day and slept on the floor by mum’s hospital bed where I fell in love with her nurses, because they were the coolest creatures. They all had their own lives and struggles, there were aftershocks happening all the time, and they still gave so much of themselves. One woman on that ward of broken people, she had survived but her daughter hadn’t, and those nurses were so kind, running that hospital with compassion, humour and humanity.

A few years ago I was working on a show in America where I met an actor who I got on really well with, even though he was absolutely the opposite to me in terms of political views. And when you think of America, you can imagine what his views might be. But by the time we realised we had different opinions, we’d become good friends, because our values were similar even though our political views were vastly different. So we talked about that, which led to a series of really fantastic, really respectful, really revealing conversations about what we believed and why. My sister Suze is a psychologist and she says that people give respect when they are offered it. But the moment you start injecting disrespect or fear into the conversation, that’s what you get back, and that’s when things degenerate.

If I was to get on any sort of soapbox today, it would be about not getting on soapboxes. As it’s never been more important that we start listening to each other, because society is heading down some really dangerous paths. So instead of positioning ourselves, it’s time to listen. Talcott Parsons said that ‘families are factories where people are made’ because we all come from our families, our pasts and our backgrounds while also trying to negotiate life on a planet with eight billion others. Yet because of the internet and social media, we’re losing the ability to talk, and talking can get us out of everything. Talking not shouting. Talking not trolling.

I’ve always been desperate to be a highly effective person, like in the book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, but the only habit I can remember is ‘seek first to understand, then be understood’. Human beings are actually very capable of being understanding, but we can’t hope to achieve much if it’s all ‘I’m right and you’re wrong so shut up’. So today my soapbox would be about listening, and how it can help us find out what others are fearful of, and then we can talk about it.

My Story ends today, and writer Elisabeth Easther would like to acknowledge what an honour it has been to have over 160 remarkable people share their innermost thoughts with her for this profile.