Emily Perkins opens up on changing careers and her personal life
Emily Perkins say 'we’ve got stuck in this way of thinking … that people must perform as good little economic units.” Photo / David White/Stuff
Arts Laureate Emily Perkins is a writer of novels, short stories and plays. She has also taught at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington’s International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML). Perkins’ latest novel, Lioness, is her first since The Forrests.
Q: How did your parents’ personalities shape your own character?
A: My mum just turned 80, and one of her biggest influences would be the value she placed on reading. As I got older, I was amazed to meet people who’d been told off for reading, because their parents felt they should be outside doing something, or being useful in some way. So I’m very lucky I was encouraged to read.
Q: And your father?
A: Dad died when he was 57, when I was 28, so it’s harder to talk about him, as I hadn’t really known him as an adult. I’d also been living overseas for four years before he died. I came home when he was dying, and had those last three weeks with him, but he was really unwell. Dad was lovely and I do know he loved being in nature, and so do I. He was very appreciative of the outdoors, a gin and tonic and a cigarette. Ideally, all those things at the same time.
Q: You were 16 when you played Fran in television series Open House in 1986. Then you studied acting at Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School. Why did you turn your back on acting?
A: I tried to be an actor until I was about 23. But I reached a point where acting wasn’t working out for me. I wasn’t getting the work, and I concluded I wasn’t good enough at it. There could be other reasons. Like not being ready as a person. Or I wanted my energy to go into something else. I didn’t like that feeling of disempowerment, either; of just waiting. Then I got into the undergraduate writing course at Victoria University, when it was taught by Bill Manhire, and off I went.
Q: It’s rather brave, for your back-up career after acting, to pick something similarly unstable.
A: At drama school, they were always wanting us to take risks – to be vulnerable or let things go. At 18 and 19, I found that really difficult. Back then, I didn’t want to risk anything. I was just trying to keep myself together. By the time I got to the writing course – there’s a big difference between 19 and 23 – I didn’t feel I had as much to lose, so I was able to throw myself into it. It was such a great environment, too, a brilliant mixture of structure and freedom.
Q: What shape did your OE take?