‘Who's this idiot?': Courtney Dawson on the irresistible pull of reality TV
In one of the funnier scenes from TVNZ's new documentary series Don't, Courtney Dawson gets dressed up to face one of life's greatest challenges: buying a house. With a charming purple feather fascinator atop her head, Dawson and comedian Bubbah (resplendent in a pair of pink lace gloves) meet with an Auckland real estate agent to find out exactly what people need to do today to buy a home – other than look the part of a wealthy homeowner. 'We thought we better get dressed up like ladies from Remuera,' Dawson laughs over Zoom. 'So we got some gorgeous wee crowns and silly little jewels, and we had a great time.'
In Don't, Bubbah is joined by Dawson, Rhiannon McCall and Bailey Poching as they tackle the big issues facing young New Zealanders today: getting married, having children and buying a home. They speak to a variety of experts to learn what their options are, and consider what 'living the dream' in Aotearoa really means for our younger generations. It's the latest TV project for Dawson (Ngāti Kurī, Ngāti Amaru) who, as well as being an award-winning comedian, has appeared on shows like Rags are Riches, Have You Been Paying Attention NZ, Paddy Gower Has Issues and Celebrity Treasure Island.
Not only was Don't a chance for Dawson to work with her friend Bubbah ('as soon as I got asked to be part of the project, I was like, 'if Bubba's in, I'm in''), Dawson appreciated how the docuseries offered a variety of perspectives from young people. 'It was nice to think it's actually all good if you don't want to own a home. There's lots of different ways to live a life.'
That includes living your life through television, of course, so we sat down with Dawson to delve into a past filled with a nightmarish alien experience, an empowering Celebrity Treasure Island moment and a strong yearning to watch Love Island at the pub.
My earliest TV memory is… My nan had a strong VCR game and she recorded all the episodes of the BBC's The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. I have vivid memories of going to this beautiful mid century cabinet and picking out the videos with the labels all peeling off and her beautiful handwriting. I would watch it and be completely transported.
The TV show I loved as a kid was… The Simpsons was a big thing in my family, but we also had long periods of having no TV as well, probably because we were homeschooled. The Simpsons was the one that we would all stop and watch.
My earliest TV crush was… Jonathan Taylor Thomas from Home Improvement, but I was a hard out tomboy so I would never admit that I had a crush on him. My best friend did, and I'd be like, 'oh, you're yuck', but really, I had a secret poster of him in my room from a Girlfriend magazine.
The TV moment that haunts me is… Like lots of kids who grew up in the 90s, I was terrified of The X-Files. Whenever I used to hear theme music, I would run into my room. One night I was brave and sneaky and I peeked out – with just one eye – to look at the TV. As I was doing it, there was an alien that was peeking out from behind a drainpipe. I had nightmares that night, and I've had a recurring nightmare about that alien for years.
My TV guilty pleasure is… Love Island. I thought reality TV was a waste of time, but my flatmate is a big reality TV fan. I'd walk in the lounge when she was watching Love Island and be like, 'who's this idiot?' Before I knew it, I was fully invested in all of these people's lives and looking them up on Instagram. I don't know whether I like Love Island, or I just like yelling at the TV. That's the only thing that I'm jealous of with men, is that they get to watch their programmes in bars and yell at the TV in public. I would love to do that with Love Island.
My favourite moment from my own TV career is… Celebrity Treasure Island. It was an amazing but real harrowing experience. There was one challenge where we had to throw sacks of sand at a pole and knock it off. I was hanging back, but as soon as I threw it, all of this muscle memory came back from when I used to play softball, and I ended up knocking both the poles off. I felt like the most powerful woman alive.
The funniest person on TV is… Bubbah, and I'm not just saying this because we made a show together. She's so funny on stage and television, but she's also a genuinely crackup person in her normal life. She's done something similar to Tofiga [Fepulea'i] in that she's built this beautiful, amazing career on her terms, in her own community, which is a real testament to the natural charisma that she has and the strong values that she has. She's a really inspiring, awesome person.
My favourite TV show that I've ever been involved with is… My first TV show that I ever did, Rags are Riches. It was this little Māori TV show that Joe Daymond made. The only person on the cast and crew who had ever done TV before was the soundie. None of us had any idea, but it was so fun.
The most stylish person on TV is… Janaye Henry. She made a show called 2 Cents 2 Much, and far out, the outfits and the styling of the set was so good. I re-watched it recently just to look at her outfits for inspiration.
The TV show I wish I was involved with is… Taskmaster. It looks so fun. If I can make a career out of playing games on television, that would be awesome.
What is your most watched TV show of all time? I've watched every season of Black Mirror because I'm terrified of AI and I like scaring myself.
The show I'll never watch, no matter how many people tell me to is… Game of Thrones. The more someone tells me to watch something, the less likely I am to watch it. I'm happy you guys got to enjoy your dragons, but that's just not going to happen for me.
The last thing I watched on TV was… Black Mirror, and before that, Severance, because I'm scared of computers. I'm scared of the robots. I love horror stuff, so combining fake horror with potential real life horror, that's my favourite.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Spinoff
18 hours ago
- The Spinoff
‘Didn't win their confidence': Paul Glover's first day blunder on Love It Or List It NZ
The actor, turned realtor, turned Love It Or List It NZ host, shares his life in television. Paul Glover fell in love with acting by accident. As a child, his parents owned a fruit shop down a lane behind Auckland's Civic Theatre, and he remembers sneaking into the theatre, over and over again, just to watch whatever movie was showing on the big screen. 'I think my dad and mum gave heaps of fruit to the ushers, because I used to go and watch movies for free,' Glover says. 'I didn't even know what acting was, but I knew I wanted to do that sort of thing.' Since those inauspicious beginnings, Glover has become a fixture on New Zealand screens, building an extensive career that includes television shows like Educators, 800 Words, Head High and Spartacus, and films like Nude Tuesday, Out of the Blue and Snakeskin. But three years ago, Glover decided it was time for a change, and trained as a real estate agent in Auckland. Ironically, his new career led him straight back to the small screen, with Glover now the co-host of not one but two TVNZ property TV shows: Location Location Location NZ and Love It or List It NZ, which begins this Sunday night. Love It or List It NZ is based on the British property series hosted by Phil Spencer and Kirstie Allsopp. Glover and his interior designer co-host Alex Walls meet homeowners around the motu, with Walls renovating existing homes to convince the owners to love them, while Glover tempts the homeowners to list their house by showcasing the best local homes for sale. Glover has relished the unexpected opportunity to mix his real estate skills with his experience in front of the camera. 'I've spent the better part of my life watching renovation shows, but I never imagined I'd be a realtor, let alone co-hosting one of the shows I loved.' Ahead of the launch of Love It or List NZ, we sat down with the actor-turned-realtor-turned-TV-host to find out what other shows he loves, including an After School favourite, a side-splitting Educators scene and an emotional local documentary series. My earliest TV memory is… When I went to church with my dad, I was allowed to watch Hammer House of Horror afterwards as a special treat. I watched a lot of really old Christopher Lee vampire movies, The Bionic Man, all that sort of stuff. The TV show I used to rush home from school to watch was… After School with Olly Ohlson. I loved that show so much. Also The Dukes of Hazzard and What Now. My first appearance on television was… A Chesdale Cheese commercial. I thought it was my big break. I was doing Northland youth theatre up in Whangārei, and I came back especially to shoot this TV commercial. I was about 15 years old, and I went to Waiuku and stayed in the army barracks. It was a lot of fun. A career highlight for me was… Working on Educators. It's all improvised. The story arc is there, and the wonderful thing about Jesse Griffin and Jackie Van Beek is that they say, 'what are your ideas around your character?' If there's gold, they will use it. There's no script, so we're literally just riffing off each other. I'm in constant awe of Kura Forrester and Cohen Holloway and Jonny Brugh and Jackie van Beek and Rick Donald. All of them are just so insanely talented. It's so much fun working in that space. The TV series I loved watching recently was… Choir Games. I love television that shows real people being extraordinary, and seeing them grow and step outside of themselves. That was really epic. I wish it was longer than four episodes. The funniest moment from my own TV career is… A scene from Educators, where my character was in a men's support group. I was sitting beside Rick Donald's character, who was talking about his cellmate in jail, a guy called Bushy. Organically, I went, 'oh, how did he get the name Bushy?' As soon as I asked it, I felt like it was a mistake, and then Rick just dug into this story. People behind the camera were laughing, and I was sitting there trying to keep a straight face until somebody laughed a little bit too much, and that set me off. It was hilarious, even though I felt terrible for ruining the take. My favourite TV project that I've ever been involved with is… Love It or List It NZ. I never imagined I'd be a TV presenter. I've been challenged to step out and reinvent myself, and I really value that opportunity. There were also loads of funny moments. The very first day of filming, I almost crashed the electric Mustang into the house that we were about to renovate. That probably didn't win their confidence in me. You'll find out whether they decide to love it or list it. A moment from my own career that has stayed with me is… Working on Out of the Blue. We felt a tremendous sense of responsibility making that film. The director Robert Sarkies did an amazing job of respecting everyone and honouring the story. It's a harrowing story, but tremendous people were involved and those people that survived were incredibly gracious. It was amazing to make those connections. The TV show I keep going back to is… Probably the movies we all watch together as a family, like Land of the Lost. It's a Will Ferrell movie that tanked, but it's actually very funny. We'll watch that and then play a game where one of us pretends to be the lizard running around the house, trying to capture everybody else. It's quite dangerous, because you turn off all the lights. I'm surprised nobody's run into something and broken their bones.
The Spinoff
18 hours ago
- The Spinoff
The perils of picking the perfect plane movie
The most important part of any holiday is what you choose to watch on the flight there and back, writes Alex Casey. I cannot even begin to express to you how much the guy across the aisle was fanging to watch The Crow (2024). Most of us were still finding our seats, stowing our carry-on and steeling our wills for the 17-hour flight ahead of us, but he was already somehow into double digits on the duration, utterly transfixed by last year's ' unfathomably awful ' Bill Skarsgård reboot. Far from ridiculing this man, I envied him. He demonstrated the same self-assuredness of another passenger I had encountered accidentally sitting in my seat on a previous flight. The screen revealed he was already deep into Michael Jackson's greatest hits playlist and, after the smooth criminal soon found his allocated seat, we all celebrated with an extremely tinny 'Billie Jean' leaking through his flimsy Emirates headphones once more. In-flight entertainment is particularly crucial for New Zealanders. If you are woke enough to know what the hell it even says on those confusing little black books, you probably also know that we require at least the duration of two feature length films to fly anywhere deemed 'overseas'. To get to Japan you will need 11 hours. To get to New York you will need 16 hours. To reach London Heathrow, you'll need at least a full 24 hour day. We're gonna need more than just quizzes to get us through. You'd think this type of long-haul endurance flying would make us savvier than most when it comes to curating our in-flight entertainment. Alas, on a recent 17-hour flight from Auckland to Dubai, I witnessed dozens of New Zealanders completely lose their minds in a prison of indecision. One person watched an entire season of The White Lotus, but completely out of order. Another watched two minutes of Iron Man, then two minutes of Frozen 2, then immediately fell asleep to Avatar 2. To be absolutely clear, I am also one of these people (made a 40+ hour watchlist including Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and Joker 2: Folie a Deux, watched five minutes of Lilo and Stitch chased down by an episode of… Scare Tactics??). If you too find yourself riddled with indecision and neuroses, here are eight simple rules to successfully select movies for your next long haul flight. 1. Horror seldom works out One of the craziest mistakes among the many that I made was popping on Steven Soderbergh's Presence, a slow-burning spooky thriller shot from the POV of a ghost, right as the lights went up and the trolleys of sweaty omelettes started trundling past for breakfast. Anything remotely scary requires the right atmosphere to build tension, and hurtling through the sky in a sealed fart tube is simply not it. I also watched the opening scene of The Monkey, and promptly turned it off following the first disembowelment because the children in the row behind me were crying. 2. Backfill the critical darlings If there's a festival, foreign, or Oscar-nominated film on offer, or any film that you nearly paid cold hard cash to see at the cinema: watch it on the plane. You are earning back the price of a $20 ticket with every choice, and given that I put away The Apprentice, Kneecap, The Last Showgirl and The Outrun on just one leg, I earned back a tidy $80 entirely through sitting on my arse. That's not 'girl math' by the way, that's just math. Girl math is the fact that I watched all of The Last Showgirl even though I found it to be quite a bore, all because I still feel bad for how we all treated Pamela Anderson. 3. Beware the boxset I saw a couple of confident folks immediately ripping into franchises like Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings from the very beginning, implicitly committing to watching the full boxset for the entirety of the flight. Again, I admire and envy the conviction, but I worry about this avenue. What if you fall asleep before they've even taken the hobbits to Isengard? There's also a question of legacy: do you want to forever remember your trip to Europe where you got surprise engaged under the Eiffel Tower as 'The Harry Potter holiday'? Just something to think about. 4. Avoid novelty choices I know a long haul flight is a liminal space, and sometimes crossing certain time zones means you are gifted extra hours on the clock, but that doesn't mean you have to watch Air Fryers: Are They Worth It? because it might make for a funny joke one day. Same goes for buzzed-about stinkers like Megalopolis and It Ends With Us, which I hovered over thinking 'well if not now, then when?' In the immortal words of Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park, which the person next to me watched half of before switching to Encanto: 'your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.' 5. Old is often gold Guy Montgomery has a joke about watching 2001: A Space Odyssey for the first time on a tiny screen on a long-haul flight, just as Stanley Kubrick intended. While it does feel hugely disrespectful and discordant to experience the classics of cinema on a plane, there's something thrilling about watching something a relic of the past while propelling through the skies in anticipation of the near future. There's also a hallucinogenic quality to so many old movies that they can also work as a drug-free trip when you are sleep-deprived and dehydrated. For example, I watched Whatever Happened To Baby Jane (1967) and had cool dreams of crazed Bette Davis in a nightie waiting for me at immigration. 6. Animal anything always Whenever I got up to stroll the cabins, one thing was abundantly clear: people of all stripes really, really love that movie featuring Steve Coogan and an animated penguin. Any film that could have a pull quote describing 'a true story of wit, warmth, and cute [insert any animal] antics' is always going to over well when you are feeling vulnerable, anxious or homesick in the skies. My personal highlights from this genre were Paddington in Peru and a National Geographic documentary about the close relationship between a Scottish man and a river otter named Molly. Five stars. 7. Let the tears flow freely Being on a long flight strips you of all distractions and reduces you to your base elements: you eat, you sleep, you excrete. It always means you are likely to feel your emotions more deeply, whether that be boiling rage at the nearby passenger picking their nose and eating it, or unbridled joy at the sight of a single slice of fresh fruit. It can also mean you are more prone to tears: and lots of them. I was in full shoulder-shaking sobs during Bridget Jones 4: Mad About the Boy and the cabin crew didn't even blink, ditto during We Live in Time. Beware though: at 30,000 feet, even Harry and the Hendersons will make you weep (reminded me of my dog). 8. Short on time? Go sitcom Find yourself with less than 90 mins before landing? Don't start a movie and promise to finish it when you get home, because you will either forget entirely or have to watch the whole thing from the start again. Instead, beloved sitcoms are your best friend here. With 20 minutes until landing, I cracked open season five of The Office US and watched the weight loss episode, instantly giddy with silent laughter and trails of tears down my cheeks. Sure, much of the episode would be cancelled in 2025, but you're not in 2025 in the sky. You're on plane time.
Scoop
a day ago
- Scoop
Shortland Street Returns For 2026 - Thanks To NZ On Air
TVNZ and South Pacific Pictures are pleased to announce Shortland Street will return for its 2026 season, thanks to ongoing funding support from NZ On Air. NZ On Air funding, which was confirmed this morning, combined with eligibility for the Screen Production Rebate, will enable the continuation of New Zealand's longest-running drama in the new year. Shortland Street is one of the most recognisable and loved television programmes in Aotearoa. It provides immense cultural value on screen, while also offering a rich training ground for actors and crew behind the scenes. Shortland Street is a key pillar of the TVNZ 2 slate, but its dedicated rangatahi audience has placed it at the forefront of audience fragmentation. As one of TVNZ+'s most streamed programmes, Shorty fans are split across broadcast and digital platforms. With audiences migrating online, effort is underway to increase the digital revenue needed to support Shortland Street as a digital first content proposition. Prior to 2023, Shortland Street operated without funding support for 28 years. TVNZ and South Pacific Pictures are focusing on transitioning Shortland Street to a commercially funded, digitally delivered show and NZ On Air's funding provides a crucial pathway towards making that ambition a reality. TVNZ's Chief Executive, Jodi O'Donnell says, 'We're extremely grateful for NZ On Air's support in helping us keep this taonga on screen. Our audiences love Shorty and NZ On Air's funding ensures we can continue to bring this iconic drama to viewers in 2026 while we work through its digital transition.' South Pacific Pictures Chief Executive, Kelly Martin says ' Shortland Street continues to entertain NZ audiences with its diverse and relatable stories, and it continues to play a crucial role in the NZ production sector, providing consistent employment and fostering local talent. We are incredibly thankful to both TVNZ and NZ On Air for their support.'
