Each busy school morning, actress Anna Jullienne sends her children off with a sense of sadness. With her youngest Nina turning five at the end of June, the 43-year-old is approaching the end of an era – saying goodbye to kindergarten for good.
“I’ve started feeling sentimental about the finishing of kindy,” she tells.
“It’s such a wonderful place, where they skip off and play all day, and it is where both my boys went. “But they have a really beautiful ceremony where they wear a korowai and sing Happy School Days to You, and they do a dance. It’s a real tearjerker.”
While it’s a big step, Anna isn’t worried about her fearless daughter embarking on this new adventure – growing up with big brothers Ted, 11, and Jude, nine, Nina knows how to hold her own.
“She’s feeling really good about it,” Anna smiles.
“She’s so tough. For a couple of years, I worried she didn’t have pain receptors because she can take a knock. She is so resilient and she’s just a cool gal.”
Ready for a slower pace
Making the adjustment easier is the realisation that her children, whom she shares with husband James, will be needing one less drop-off and pick-up.
“It’s too many,” she exclaims.
“I need one less Grandparents’ Day and bake sale. At the end of last term, I really felt I needed a couple fewer tabs of school things open!”
As her children tackle new challenges, Anna has found herself reflecting on her future. While acting will always be her passion, she admits the unpredictability is difficult.
“Of late, I have been thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to have a job that has more security?’” she says.
“But then I look at my skillset – very friendly, can remember words, can speak in accents – and I don’t really know how useful that is to different jobs.”
A new role off-screen
While a traditional nine to five is unlikely in her future, Anna has found the perfect way to put her skills to use: teaching speech and drama to youngsters.
“That’s quite my jam,” she enthuses.
“I like children – I think they’re hilarious. It’s hard to fit in after school when you have a young family, but as they get older, that will become easier to manage.”
Though she’s broadening her skillset, that doesn’t mean she’s ready to walk away from acting altogether. This month, she’ll tread the boards in The Queen’s Nanny, a play about Marion “Crawfie” Crawford, who served as nanny for Queen Elizabeth II and her sister Princess Margaret when they were young. After she retired, she was cut off from the family when she wrote a book spilling details of the 16 years she spent with the royals.
Starring alongside fellow Shortland Street alum Laura Hill and Jack Buchanan, it has been a history lesson for Anna, who confesses she had very little knowledge of the royal family beforehand.
“I haven’t not been a fan, but they haven’t really been on my newspaper,” she explains.
Tackling a tough new accent
However, the steepest learning curve has been mastering Marion’s accent. While Anna has been French, Eastern European and English before, wrapping her mouth around the Scottish burr is something else entirely.
“Learning to speak in a Scottish accent is actually tricky,” she explains.
“At our first read-through, I went for it. Sometimes I sounded Irish and sometimes I didn’t know where I was from, but I kept going. But I know I’ll have it by the end of the rehearsal period.”
The effort will be worth it, though, as Anna will have some very special guests in the audience. After her sons’ requests to see her on stage, she feels this is a play she can finally bring them to.
“I don’t know if they’ll find it scintillating, but it’s not inappropriate,” she laughs.
“When Mean Mums came to Netflix, they watched a bit. They kept saying, ‘Mum, why are you so mean?’”
Anna stars in The Queen’s Nanny at The Pumphouse Theatre in Auckland from May 14-24. For tickets, visit pumphouse.co.nz
