If New Zealand gave out an annual award for the country’s biggest international fan, it would be Miriam Margolyes collecting the trophy this year and making a hilarious thank you speech.
The award-winning British actor and presenter is enamoured with Aotearoa after spending a couple of lengthy stints here in 2024, filming both a movie and a documentary.
In the film Holy Days, she plays a nun who goes on a road trip and in Miriam Margolyes in New Zealand, she does that for real, driving a campervan around the country and meeting fascinating New Zealanders.
On a Zoom call from her home in Italy – she also has houses in the UK and Australia – Miriam, 83, tells the Weekly why she would settle here if she was younger.
I found New Zealand to be a thrilling country.
It thrilled me with its energy, beauty and kindness. People are not greedy, there’s a delicacy about them that is charming.
Māori people excite me – they are magnificent. It was thrilling to meet them, and learn more about their culture and the Treaty of Waitangi. Your Māori culture is embraced and people are proud of it, and I think that’s wonderful.
I met such wonderful people, like your Black Ferns. Ruby Tui is a magnificent young woman. Meeting the Pike River ladies, Anna Osbourne and Sonia Rockhouse, was very moving. It’s terrible what they’ve had to go through, losing their husband and son. I think it’s wicked that the people who ran the mine have not been brought to justice.
Yes, I did actually drive the campervan around New Zealand.
Not all the time, because I had a team with me, but I drove for about two hours a day. What was difficult was having to talk to the camera, this little Go-Pro stuck on the window, at the same time as making sure I was driving safely. I didn’t have a script and I was trying to make sense, so it wasn’t easy. But I didn’t mind driving it and I did like having a toilet with me, which is paramount!
The documentaries I do take me right out of my comfort zone.
I know people see me as a funny little lady and indeed I am. But I’m a lot more than that. I meet the sort of people I would never normally meet, like the gang members. I like that. Our lives are bubbles we stay in, meeting the same sort of people all the time. I want to go outside that and broaden my life while I can.
New Zealanders are so much more cultured and gentle than Australians, who are rather brash.
I spend a lot of time in Australia. My partner Heather Sutherland is Australian and I’m a citizen. I think the American influence is paramount in Australia and probably the British influence is paramount in New Zealand, along with the Māori one, which I think is infinitely better.
I owe Graham Norton a great deal.
He was sweet enough to invite me onto his show several times and people found it amusing. I suppose a lot of people know me from that now.
I was just being myself – I’ve always said things that other people wouldn’t say. People have always said to me, “Oh, for God’s sake, Miriam, do shut up,” but I can’t. I always tell the truth. I’m a very genuine person, although sometimes I can be rather disgraceful.
I do have a potty mouth, I don’t know why.
My mother and father would be distressed, but I’m just being true to myself. I was the first person to say the F word on British television. It was on University Challenge in 1962 – I got a question wrong and said, “Oh, f***”. They bleeped it out but you can see my mouth saying the word. Not really something to be proud of.
I’d love to come back to New Zealand this year, but I’m going to be too busy.
I have a lot of work on, which makes me very happy and grateful.
When you’re old like I am, you know you haven’t got much time left. You can either sit on your bottom doing nothing and wither away or you can get off your bottom and do as much as you can. I definitely have no plans to retire. Retiring is giving up and I’m not going to do that.
Miriam Margolyes in New Zealand is streaming on Neon.
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