These Shortland Street stars are now BFFs off screen - Spy

Shorty stars Courtney Louise, Jane Wills and Peter Burman are BFFs in real life too.

Flatmates on Shorty, Courtney Louise, Jane Wills and Peter Burman are BFFs in real life too, reveals Ricardo Simich.

Shortland Street’s Dr Phillipa Gray might have had a scandalous affair with Dr Harper Whitley, but in real life Dr Phil, played by Jane Wills, has formed a best-friends-forever bond with co-stars Courtenay Louise and Peter Burman.

“We live together on the show, and I love that because I wish we could live together in real life too,” Wills tells Spy. “We have a really good time together and we all get along, with a fair bit of joking around – we like to make fun of each other.”

Wills, 28, started on Shorty earlier this year and Burman, 25, who plays nurse Sage Stewart, started on the show late last year.

They went to the same drama school, Toi Whakaari, and had mutual friends in common before she started on the show, Wills explains.

“Jane literally cornered me on her first day and said, ‘we will be best friends’,” says Burman. “To be honest, we haven’t looked back.”

Louise, 31, who plays the headstrong Monique Strutter, was thrown together with Wills when they started sharing a dressing room.

“In a way, Courtenay and Peter really had no choice but to be my friends,” says Wills.

Peter Burman and Jane Wills went to the same drama school, Toi Whakaari, before co-starring on the famous Kiwi soap.

A joke of the BFFs is a lack of invites to Louise’s picturesque April wedding to her long-time love Chris Read in Mahurangi.

“We didn’t make the wedding – Courtenay already made the guest list before we were on the scene,” says Wills. “We like to tease her about how sad we are that we weren’t invited.”

Louise and Read recently got back from an idyllic honeymoon in Europe.

“Chris and I had the most incredible time. I had never been to Europe so it was so amazing to experience it with my best friend-slash-husband,” says Louise. “My favourite place was definitely Paris, it was beautiful – I loved all the culture and the architecture. I could definitely see myself living there.”

Just before the honeymoon, the three new BFFs had their own minimoon with a trip to Wānaka.

Wills was born and raised in Timaru and knew her new BFFs had not spent much time down south.

“Court and Peter haven’t spent that much time there, so we thought we should go down for a little gals’ trip,” Wills tells Spy.

Courtenay Louise and Jane Wills are off-screen pals.

Burman says Wills knows Wānaka like the back of her hand and planned a very full itinerary. “That included visiting Jane’s favourite bakeries and wineries - to us going to a distillery to learn how gin was made,” he says. “Court and I were really just along for the ride.”

Back in Auckland, Louise and Wills keep fit together. “Jane and I love to walk around the building at SPP during our work breaks. That’s kind of our only way of staying fit and healthy, so we love going for a stroll together.”

While Wills and Burman are pretty much neighbours, if they miss each other at work because of different shooting schedules they make up for it by going to their local coffee shop or to the movies.

Have the new pals brought their partners into their friendship?

“Peter and I have met Court’s husband Chris, and Court and Peter have both met my boyfriend Leo,” says Wills.

“Chris and Leo are yet to meet, but Court and I are planning a double date. We want it to be the perfect meeting so that they get along as well as we do.”

Ricardo Simich is the Herald’s Spy editor. Based in Auckland, he covers all roads that lead to popular culture.