She’s best known as murdered wife Julia Reinhart from Shortland Street, but actress Jessica Joy Wood is also the writing genius behind some of the show’s most dramatic storylines, such as the death of Harper Whitley and the arrest of Harry Warner. And with those credits under her belt, the star, 42, recently left New Zealand to pen scripts for the UK’s biggest medical drama, Casualty.
“I’d been at Shorty for nine years and I needed to spread my wings,” she explains.
“It’s important to take risks.”
Introducing Jess in Wales
When Woman’s Day catches up with Jess, it’s from her rented “proper terrace house” in Cardiff, Wales, where she lives with her husband Carl Dixon, 41, and their son Wyn.
“Wales is awesome!” she enthuses.
“There are a lot of similarities to New Zealand. People have the same sense of humour and the country is beautiful. The Welsh language has also had such a cool resurgence and it’s interesting coming from where we’re at in New Zealand with te reo Māori. Wyn will learn Welsh at school.”
From London dreams to Welsh reality
While Jess and Carl had previously lived in London for years, and had always wanted to go back to that side of the world, she initially thought that dream would come true when she was shortlisted for
a job at UK soap EastEnders.
“Then my mum got diagnosed with terminal cancer,” Jess shares.
Eventually, the screenwriter landed her job at Casualty and the family had just six weeks to prepare for their new life.
Coping with loss and change
“During this time, Carl’s father passed away and my mum started chemotherapy, so there was a lot going on,” she recalls.
“We were like, ‘What are we doing?’ We moved country, arrived here and thought, ‘Well, that was a lot.’ But here we are.”
She confesses her three-year-old son has felt the move much more than his devoted parents anticipated.
“I thought he’d take it in his stride and not really know what’s going on,” says Jess.
Staying connected across continents
“But most weeks – and at the start, it used to be most days – he’ll ask when Auntie Ku [Shortland Street actress Kura Forrester] is going to come over. They FaceTime a lot.”
Although settling in is taking some getting used to for Wyn, Jess is thriving on the challenges that come from working on a big, well-funded show like Casualty.
“It’s definitely a step up from Shorty in terms of the scale of the machine,” shares the Super City star.
“I thought we’d be working at a slower pace! But it’s much more rigorous. I feel like in most New Zealand shows, it’s very fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants because we don’t have the money or time.”
At Casualty, more money means bigger locations and guest budgets, and the ability to put more time and effort into scripts and storylines.
The detail behind the desk
“Every step has a meeting, notes, and backwards and forwards,” she explains.
“Part of my job is to watch what they shoot on the day and go, ‘That isn’t right’, or, ‘We haven’t picked up that story.’”
With shooting moving so fast at Shorty, Jess often didn’t have the time to see stories all the way through from inception to the final edit. At Casualty, set in England but shot in Wales, she takes an active role from start to finish.
From shorty to casualty
Jess recalls, “Funnily enough, at work the other day, they asked how many episodes we shot at Shorty last year and I said, ‘We did 138 – and the year before that, it was 248.’ They were like, ‘What the?!’ Season 40, the last season of Casualty, was 36 episodes! “Even though Casualty is on a bigger scale, Shorty is amazing. We really punch above our weight. We’ve got such talent in New Zealand.”
It’s clear Jess has no regrets about shifting from in front of the camera to behind the writer’s desk. She smiles, “I get just as much joy from sitting in the audience and listening to people laugh along at gags, or watching a show and knowing I’ve made someone laugh or cry. Writing has reinvigorated me.”
Casualty screens 7.30pm Saturdays on Sky’s BBC First and streams on Sky Go.
