Sally Martin has appeared on Shortland Street for well over a decade. Here, she opens up about how the show has influenced her life. Photo / Supplied
Self-described introvert Sally Martin is streets apart from her Shortland Street character, Nicole Miller. She tells Karl Puschmann how appearing on Aotearoa’s biggest series has influenced her life.
Since arriving on Shortland Street 13 years ago nurse Nicole Miller has dated a murderer, suffered a brain bleed, been hit by a drunk driver, survived a helicopter crash and even, most improbably of all, married herself.
You can’t say life on Aotearoa New Zealand’s longest-running soap opera has been easy for the vivacious theatre nurse, but it’s certainly been eventful.
Fortunately, actress Sally Martin hasn’t had to face any spectacular, life-or-death, tune-in-tomorrow-night situations herself. But like her character, she too hasn’t had the easiest time since joining the Street.
Reset has Zoomed into Shortland Street on a wet Friday afternoon. Martin’s just arrived back at the set from her home in West Auckland’s arty bush hideaway, Titirangi, where she’d been dealing with car trouble.
“It could be totally unrelated to anything going on,” she says referencing Auckland’s flash flooding event before laughing. “It’s just a piece of s***.”
But Martin’s in good spirits.
She’s wearing a trendy black and white striped jumper that hangs comfortably loose, aside from a bit at the front that’s casually stuffed into her black jeans. She’s relaxed and thoughtful and notably more at ease answering revealing questions about her life, mental health, and complicated relationship with her local fame than she is with the pre and post-interview chit-chat.
“This is where I get nervous,” she admits as the interview wraps up. “Because I’m being myself.”
So, who is Sally Martin?
She is, she says, quiet. She loves nature, which explains living among the towering native trees and bright green ferns in Titirangi rather than, say, somewhere urban like Ponsonby or Grey Lynn.
She’s a devoted mum to her dog Jimothy Brown, a reader, a gardener and someone who loves to cook. Her signature dish is a curry, saagwala, which she serves up hot and spicy.
Away from the extraordinary situations of Nicole’s turbulent life, Martin’s existence is positively pastoral.
“It’s very quiet. Not going out, you know . . . not going out at all actually,” she laughs. “Staying still and being at home is how I relax.”
She is, in fact, the polar opposite of her character. Which has caused her problems both existential and physical over the years. Because when people see her, they don’t. They see someone they know. They see someone whose life – more accurately, storylines – they’ve invested in. They see Nicole.
“People think they know you and that they have a right to your time. I’ve had people come up and bear hug me from behind,” she says, still visibly shaken by the memory, before she laughs it away, saying, “I haven’t been back to that supermarket in seven years!”
As she laughs, she subconsciously scratches the little dimple under her nose. This habit is something she does whenever the conversation strays into deeper or potentially uncomfortable territory.
“It’s funny the ownership that some people think they have on you,” she continues. “A lot of people believe that they know me as this person who obviously I’m not. But they see me and the only person or personality they associate with the face is Nicole. I totally get that. It’s a really hard thing to divorce. It’s really powerful, but it can also be disconcerting.”
Martin’s beamed into people’s lounges five nights a week for more than a decade now. This makes her the third longest-running cast member on the show, after Ben Mitchell, who plays Dr T.K. Samuels and Michael Galvin aka Dr Chris Warner. And even though it was such a long time ago, the memory of getting the life-changing call to tell her she’d got the part is still fresh in her head.
“I was at my family home in Lower Hutt. I got the call on Thursday and had to start shooting on Monday. So, it was: find accommodation, get flights, all of that sort of thing, let alone getting my head around the fact that I was going to be on a show like this.”
She pauses, looks down and scratches under her nose.
“There’s a lot of consideration, well there was for me, in taking the role. It’s a dream role but I knew there would be big repercussions for myself and my identity. That was the one side of the job that made me nervous and that I didn’t like the sound of. I wondered how it was going to change my life in terms of being in public or being a familiar face to people where I would prefer if I could just fly under the radar. But I knew that a role on Shorty and being recognisable go hand in hand.”
She trails off. Then she flashes a smile and says, “but I was so excited at the same time.”
When her Shorty fame started hitting, it was initially exciting. Because her character is likeable and fun her public interactions were mostly positive. Even so, she quickly found the attention overwhelming.
“I felt quite shy and nervous to be in public . . . well, that’s actually just got worse and worse for me. That nervousness to be in public,” she sighs. “I’m a huge people pleaser, so, to please the people or live up to their expectation . . . yeah.”
When I ask if it felt like her fears and reservations were coming true, she’s quick to agree.
“Yeah, it really did. But in a different way. I just thought, ‘oh, that might be a bit annoying or might interrupt my life a little’. But it’s the way that I’ve changed and felt I’ve had to change in the way that I interact with the public. I’m really aware now of that people-pleasing thing or the masks that I put on for people. It’s a pressure I put on myself to be the person that they want me to be. Certainly not to be Nicole, that doesn’t come into it, but just for it to be a nice interaction for them, no matter how I feel. And that doesn’t really . . . I mean, it’s not truthful. I don’t think is very healthy.”
These public interactions would often weigh on her mind because she didn’t want anyone walking away saying, “that chick from TV is a real bitch”.
“It’s something I’ve talked about in therapy sessions. Some people deal with it really well. They can just say, ‘not right now,’ or ‘this isn’t a good time’. I wish that I could have a handful of that attitude or courage or whatever it is. But I’ll go home and think about it for three hours. I’ll wake up and think about it.”
Scratching above her lip she says, “It’s . . . silly. It’s very . . . yeah. It’s just the way I’m wired.”
Martin describes herself as an introvert, which feels in stark opposition to her profession.
Acknowledging the irony she says, “it’s true. I come home at the end of the day having been surrounded by so many people and say to Dan, my boyfriend, you’ve got 30 minutes of me and then I just need to be alone to regroup.”
She’s almost wincing when she says, “everyone here is absolutely amazing, but the amount of noise. It’s just so loud”.
Despite her offstage struggles, being in front of people and performing is something she’s never had a problem with.
“Because all the decisions are taken off me. It’s not Sally performing. It’s not me presenting myself,” she explains. “I’m presenting Nicole. But public speaking is my worst nightmare. If I have to speak as myself, I shake like a leaf and can barely get words out. I feel really, really sick.”
While she’s given life to Nicole for 13 years, she says it hasn’t entirely been a one-way street.
“She’s given me more guts,” she smiles. “And boldness. We’re very different. She’s an extrovert. To be able to portray a strong, loud, extroverted woman is empowering. She’s given me more courage, in a funny way. What I most like about Nicole is her boldness and directness. I wish Sally had a little bit more of that.”
Then, she laughs and says, “I think it’s seeped in a little.”
Anxiety, nervousness, therapy, sleepless nights . . . I wonder if her time on Shorty, and it has been such a long time, has been beneficial.
She doesn’t answer straight away. She looks away from the camera. She scratches under her nose. She considers her answer. And then, with absolute conviction, she says, “I absolutely do.”
“I do what I love every day. It’s grown me in a lot of different ways and given me a new perspective. It’s opened me up to a whole lot of different kinds of people as well. Which is really, really awesome. Hands down it’s been more beneficial than anything else.”
Does she enjoy putting on that mask and disappearing?
“Yeah,” Sally Martin replies. “I do.”
A live cook-off featured ox heart, wapiti, wild boar and plenty of edible wildlife.