Rebecca Gibney talks Happiness, turning 60 and her career challenges with Paula Bennett – Ask Me Anything

Rebecca Gibney is one of New Zealand's most celebrated actresses. Photo / NZ Herald

For several decades now, Rebecca Gibney has been one of the most recognisable faces on Australian and New Zealand TV screens.

From her roles in family favourites like Packed to the Rafters and Under the Vines, to crime dramas like Halifax and Wanted, Gibney has done it all.

And speaking to Paula Bennett on her NZ Herald podcast Ask Me Anything, Gibney said she has no intention of slowing down.

" I feel very fortunate in that I’m now at a stage in my career that I can just look at what’s out there and go for different challenges.

“I wanna keep reinventing myself. Another thing has come up recently that may or may not happen, but it’s in a totally different field for me, going down a totally different path. And I normally would’ve said, ‘No’ – but this year, for some reason, I keep going, ‘Sure, I’ll have a look at that. Yeah, why not?’

“I just don’t wanna stagnate. I don’t want to head into my third act and just be boring. So I don’t wanna retire, I don’t wanna garden, I wanna do stuff.”

Gibney’s latest project is Three’s musical comedy Happiness, where she plays Gaye Summers, the president of an amateur theatre company in Tauranga.

Happiness leads Rebecca Gibney (left), who plays Gaye, and Harry McNaughton (right), who plays Charlie. Photo / Warner Bros Discovery

She said the show has “magic written all over it”, and that role came along at the perfect time for the challenge she was looking for.

" I got to do warmups. I got to get in a studio and sing with real singers. We got to have choreography. It was just really fun and again, it just brought out the young child in me, the one that did used to love dancing when I was young and did love singing.

“So to be given that opportunity was just such a gift.”

It’s just the latest in a long list of TV roles. Gibney’s career is so beloved that last year she was inducted into the Hall of Fame at the Logie Awards, the biggest night in Australian television.

To accept the honour, Gibney said, she had to convince herself she deserved it.

“Initially, when they rang and suggested that it might happen, you know, we all have that imposter syndrome thing and so my first reaction was, ‘I don’t deserve it’, and there’s a little voice going, ‘does this mean it’s all over?’ Because then it’s totally overwhelming.

“But then to get to the night and have all these wonderful people say such lovely things, and then my son [Zac] to present me with the award, it’s definitely up there with my top 10 experiences ever in my life.”

Despite her concerns, her career definitely is not showing any sign of slowing down.

Gibney is due to take part in the Australian version of Dancing with the Stars in a few weeks and will follow that up with her first theatre production in more than 20 years.

She told Bennett she had turned down Dancing with the Stars several times before, but this time wanted the challenge.

Yet she found herself dealing with feelings of self-doubt, to the point that she had to speak to a therapist to find out why she was taking the show so seriously.

" And as the therapist said, it is because it’s tapping into other sides of me. It’s tapping into other things that I probably need to look at. So I thought it was just a dance show, but it brought up all this other stuff, which is good, because I think you have to keep learning and changing and dealing with issues when they come up."

Gibney said she spent much of her early career feeling like an impostor, and did not start off acting with a huge amount of confidence. But after years of hard work and learning and getting wiser, she’s at a point now where she feels she’s got it.

“My kind of motto over particularly the last 12 months since turning 60 has been, I just wanna look after all the younger versions of myself that I treated so badly when I was young.

“I judged myself so harshly, as we always do as a 15-year-old. I was like, ‘I’m too fat, my skin’s terrible’ – so I wanna go back and look after all those versions of myself.”

Listen to the full episode for more from Rebecca Gibney about the lessons she has learned in her career and her new role on Happiness.

The season finale of Happiness airs on Three and Three Now this Thursday.

Ask Me Anything is an NZ Herald podcast hosted by former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett. New episodes are available every Sunday.

You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.