KIWI STARS' LABOUR OF LOVE

This couple's long time relationship is the backbone of their new film

- Elisabeth Easther

In showbiz, it's often said you should never work with children or animals. Unofficially, it also includes your partner.

But Sophie Henderson has clearly never heard that maxim because the Outrageous Fortune star just made her third film with husband Curtis Vowell.

As well as being an actor himself, Curtis is also a successful director, with 14 years behind the camera, cutting his teeth on Shortland Street. Now making a name for himself globally, Curtis was recently in the UK directing Seize Them! - a Dark Ages comedy featuring big names like Aimee Lou Wood from The White Lotus and Bridgerton star Nicola Coughlan.

"Curtis and I started making things together in 2010 when we created a theatre show called I Heart Camping at the Basement" says Sophie, who along with being an actor is also a writer and producer.

"It did well, so we thought we would be a sure thing for funding for our next thing.

But when a couple of funders turned us down, we made a film instead." That movie was Fantail Sophie's first-ever feature.

"It started out as a play, so there was just one location -a petrol station - and four actors, which kept it affordable to make," Curtis says of that first low-budget offering.

Following Fantail's success on the festival circuit, Sophie, 39, wrote The Justice Of Bunny King, a grittier more ambitious project, starring Kiwi A-lister Thomasin McKenzie. Up next, the hilarious Baby Done, with comedian Rose Matefeo playing a reluctant mum, with Curtis directing again.

Now the dynamic couple who share two daughters Matilda, nine, and Sylvie, six - are repeating their tried-andtrue working formula with their latest project, the semiautobiographical Workmates.