Photography: Babiche Martens
Michelle Langstone, 47, is an actress, author and essayist. Known for starring roles in McLeod’s Daughters, 800 Words, Westside and One Lane Bridge, Michelle also competed on Celebrity Treasure Island in 2024. A talented writer, She published her first book in 2021, a memoir called Times Like These: On Grief, Hope and Remarkable Love. It is Michelle’s moving testament to life, loss and love.
I was about two and a half, and my older sister was watching Under the Mountain, the original ’80s TV show.
I was standing behind our old green corduroy couch, peeking over the top, when the Wilberforces were pretending to be the policemen. When he smashed his fist through the door, and it turned into the Wilberforce claw, that is my very first memory. I was utterly petrified, which is probably why I was round the back of the couch, but that was such a profound moment because it was my first awareness of the power of story.
I had this sense of a race to learn to write when I was at [Auckland’s] Mellons Bay Primary, because we had to demonstrate really good, linked-up pencil writing to graduate to pen.
I was fixated on this and I’d go up the front to put my pencil into the sharpener that was bolted to the teacher’s desk. Turning the handle, you’d smell the lead and cedarwood. I still think good penmanship is important and it makes me sad that my son’s generation won’t write as much.
My mother’s sister Lissa, emigrated to the US before I was born, so we visited her family regularly.
When I was five, we went to SeaWorld, where people were dressed up as various characters. When my sister looked up into the beak of this penguin, she said, ‘I can see a person in there,’ and the guy inside said, ‘Fk off, kid.’ We have this photo of the two of us standing next to this penguin who’d just told us to fk off. The shocked look on our faces said it all.
We were read to a lot.
When Dad came home from work, we’d pile on the couch in our dressing gowns and pyjamas. The fire would be lit and Dad would read book after book, and do all the accents. He was such a good storyteller. From then on, I read as much as I could, at breakfast, on the way to school, just everywhere.
On my first day of high school, I walked into a goalpost because I was reading.
A second terrible thing happened that same day when I walked across the field and was hit in the head by a rugby ball. It knocked my ponytail sideways and I was mortified. But I believe it was the universe trying to tell me to get in the game and not be off in fairyland.
I was badly bullied at high school, so for fourth form, I went to stay with my Aunt Lissa’s family in Riverside in California.
It was my sophomore year and it was just like the Sweet Valley High books. There, wearing letter jackets and drinking Crystal Pepsi in class. One lunchtime, someone made an announcement over the PA to inform us all that River Phoenix had died. We also had smog alerts. Some days they’d say, ‘Smog has breached acceptable levels, so lunch will be inside today and there’ll be no sports on the fields,’ which felt so surreal. But I absolutely loved it there and my aunt was like my second mum.
Back home, I made a deal with my parents that if I got good marks, I could leave school after sixth form, which is how I went to university at 17.
In my first year, one of my friends from drama classes told me she was auditioning for the drama course at Unitec. I also auditioned, partly because I was very shy, and I didn’t make friends easily, and I worried I’d be at university by myself if she was accepted.
Even though I did countless plays with Uxbridge Youth Theatre, I’d never considered acting as a career until then.
Acting was just an escape, a blissful release from shyness and the things that troubled me. At the audition, though, I realised it was what I wanted to do. Not that I was going around quoting Shakespeare – I wasn’t at all flamboyant or extroverted – but drama gave me a place to be in the world.
Whenever I stick my head above the parapet and post something online,
Most comments are about Power Rangers, even though it’s been more than 20 years since I played Kat Ranger. But the show has serious fans and Dr Katherine ‘Kat’ Manx was this cool half-cat, half-human. I had amazing little fangs fixed to my teeth and cat’s ears, and I did cool stunts, like martial arts and running up buildings. I even went to the big Power Morphicon convention in LA in 2024, in spite of not being great with crowds or small talk. So I had a fair bit of trepidation, as there was a huge stadium of people, but I’m so glad I went as it was really special to hear so many people tell me that Power Rangers had shaped their childhoods.
I fell in and out of love a lot in my twenties and thirties.
Every time a short relationship ended, I’d be inconsolable, and Mum and Dad would be so confused by how much those things tore me apart. They always said, ‘Michelle, it shouldn’t be this hard’ or, ‘When you meet your person, you’ll just know’, which used to annoy me so much.
Then I met Arun. I was in real turmoil at the time.
My dad had died just six weeks earlier. I was barely clinging on emotionally and I had to go on the TV show The Project to talk about an article I’d written about cricket. Arun was the producer of the segment and the moment I looked at him, there was this deep, quiet recognition. ‘Oh, it’s you. Of course it is.’
I was limping at the time, and Arun asked about it because he is also a physiotherapist.
He then suggested a specialist. I texted him later and pretended I’d lost the specialist’s number, even though I hadn’t. We started talking, then we went on a date and that was it. Within two months, we’d moved in together, we were married a year later, and it was exactly like Mum and Dad said it would be. Not to say it wasn’t without challenges, because two days after we married, we were plunged into lockdown. You learn a lot about a person when you’re trapped in a tiny apartment with no garden!
I used to want an all-consuming love, which is not what love means to me now.
Love is steadier now, a quieter thing. Like a rudder on a ship or a tree with really deep roots. It’s something you work on and nurture, and Arun came along at the exact right time, because before him, I’d been a bit of a flibbertigibbet. At the first sign of trouble, I’d cut and run. I’m so very glad I had that moment of clarity when we met and that it has worked out so well.
My auntie Lissa passed away last year.
After being diagnosed with motor neuron disease, she went downhill very fast and I heard the news that she was gone when I was filming the series Head Girl. Two minutes after being told, I had to be in makeup, so I ended the call and got out of my car to walk to the make-up truck. When someone asked if I was okay, I lost it completely because I loved my aunt so much and hated that I wasn’t there for her. That being on a TV show meant I missed something that really mattered and this avalanche of grief tumbled through me. Then something snapped, and I realised I just had to push everything down and go to work.
I had to shoot my character’s hardest scene of the whole show that day and I got through by the skin of my teeth.
I recently watched that episode and you can sense my pain, which fortunately matched the extremes my character was feeling. There is this existential howl of grief for my aunt that will live on forever, which I find rather comforting, even though it was the hardest day of my life.
I’ve talked a lot about IVF and my experience of being a new mother during lockdown.
But Sunny is four now and I love this age. I love how every moment for Sunny is fresh, with this quick turnover of thoughts and energy, and he’s a great reminder for me to be in the moment. In his world of imagination and stories. I love exploring through his eyes.
Sunny has also inherited my love of nature, from flowers and bugs, to birds and eels, every magical thing that grows.
To see him light up over the same things that thrilled me, including books, that gives me such immense joy. It is the most wonderful thing to have your child say, ‘Read me another story.’ That’s my idea of bliss.”
Head Girl premieres on Wednesday, June 24 at 9.30pm on Three and streams on ThreeNow.
