Spy: UK star Minnie Driver rolls into NZ for shooting of One WInter

Minnie Driver pictured with Rhys Darby is in Dunedin filming One Winter. Photo / Instagram/driverminnie

English Hollywood star Minnie Driver is in Dunedin filming One Winter alongside Kiwi stars Julian Dennison, James Rolleston and Erana James.

This week the Good Will Hunting star - who famously lives in a double-wide mobile home in Malibu - posted a video wandering through the wilderness of the South Island to the coast, exclaiming "OMG" as she saw this side of the Pacific.

Driver told her Instagram followers she was working on the nicest job with the nicest people. The 52-year-old lost her glasses, so her production team had her script type made larger.

One Winter's story is set in New Zealand in 1981 during the Springbok tour when the arrival of the South African rugby team set off nationwide protests against apartheid and racism. Driver has also posted pictures of herself in character in a 1981 zip-up fleece top with peroxide blonde hair.

In what looks to be Dennison's biggest Kiwi role since Hunt for the Wilderpeople, he stars as Josh Waaka, a 17-year-old of mixed race who has been a bystander all his life but is suddenly forced to stand up for himself, his family and his future.

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Irish stars Richard Flood, of Grey's Anatomy and Shameless fame, and Michelle Fairley who played Catelyn Stark in Game of Thrones, are also in New Zealand, filming The Gone. The gripping new TV series is about a young Irish couple who have vanished from an infamous rural North Island town. Flood plays an Irish detective alongside Kiwi actor Acushla-Tara Kupe – of Under the Vines fame - who plays a Kiwi cop.

The six-part New Zealand/Ireland co-production promises a cultural collaboration between the countries, sharing their beauty, complexity and similarities. The series will be filmed in Auckland and Te Aroha, with further shooting in Dublin later this year.

Te Reo Māori will be weaved throughout the series, with a cast of both Irish and Māori actors including Spartacus actor Manu Bennett.