Oscar Kightley has explained the cunning way he got Prince Charles to guest voice a part in Bro'Town, with a little help from Helen Clark.
Speaking to Simon Barnett and Phil Gifford on Newstalk ZB this afternoon, Kightley recalled the time Prince Charles, alongside then-Prime Minister Helen Clark, attended a play Kightley had co-written.
Knowing he'd get to meet Prince Charles backstage, he got someone to plant a microphone in the dressing room.
When Helen Clark and Prince Charles came around for a brief meeting, Kightley didn't waste time. "We're doing this cartoon, is it cool if we do a voice?" he asked the royal.
"Oh I don't know about that," Prince Charles replied.
"And Helen Clark kind of piped up 'oh go on, I've been in it," Kightley recalls.
Prince Charles ended up agreeing and the Samoan-born New Zealand actor asked him to say "Morningside for life", which the royal repeated, to the strategically placed microphone.
"Everything he said, we used in the episode."
After the episode aired, and because they had tried to get Prince Charles on Bro'Town via the official means, a letter arrived from Buckingham Palace, declining the official request.
To this day, Kightley points out, Prince Charles has only been on two TV shows: Bro'Town and Coronation Street.
In his Newstalk ZB interview this afternoon, Kightley also revealed his mum is his "dearest friend".
"She's known me the longest, she gave me up when I was 4 years old so I could be adopted by my family in New Zealand. She came over and stayed a part of my life. everything I do is to make her proud. She's the reason I kind of don't muck up or misbehave," the acclaimed actor said.