FLYING HIGH BUT STAYING GROUNDED
Since graduating from Auckland’s South Seas Film & TV School in 2017, Tatum Warren-Ngata has become one of New Zealand’s fastest-rising stars. She speaks with Equity Magazine about life as a freelancer, nurturing the creative spirit, keeping it real and the importance of being financially savvy.
While amassing an impressive array of credits, including ground-breaking Māori series Ahikāroa, Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog and international hit series My Life is Murder, Tatum Warren-Ngata has also been busy learning how to navigate life as an actor.
“My first year out of film school, I don’t think I was prepared for life as a freelancer in the arts,” she says. “As much as they tried, I don’t think anything can really prepare you for the responsibility and accountability that comes with being your own boss and solely responsible for motivating yourself. I certainly stumbled around at the start, but I had to figure it out pretty quickly.
“This is my plan A and there’s no way I’m shaking that, but being a freelancer also means being able to supplement my acting income and pay my bills. I think that’s a reality you’ve got to accept if you want to be in it for the long haul.”
That reality meant learning to be smart with money, which doesn’t always come naturally to creatives, as Tatum acknowledges. “I think it’s so important to be hungry for information around how best to manage your finances. I know a lot of people — and I’m not sure if this just comes with having a creative brain — can’t be bothered with taxes and end up paying penalties on top of penalties. Really being onto all those things with an accountant is the most important advice I’d give someone starting out. It’s so easy to think, Oh, I can make a lot of money being an actor. You can, but you need to be able to sustain it. Getting a large lump of money upfront is great, but some of that goes to taxes, some to your agent or publicist, and you could also need it to survive between work opportunities.”
Along with financial wellbeing, Tatum has found it important to take care of her mental and physical wellbeing. “If you are the service or the end product, working yourself to the bone is not going to help you in any way. You want to make sure your health and social life are good, you’ve got a good support network, and that you’re having fun, even when you’re not working. Because you want to be prepared for when − all of a sudden — it’s, Hey, we didn’t audition you, but we’ve heard great things. We want to book you for a TV show starting tomorrow. Can you do it?
Tatum discovered her love of acting while in her first school play, aged eight, and was encouraged by her parents to continue drama lessons. Ahikāroa, her first role out of film school, gave Tatum, who is half Māori, the chance to work with Māori creatives while improving her Te Reo Māori (language). Now in its fifth series, the acclaimed bilingual show follows the trials and tribulations of a group of young Māori living in Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland). Te Reo is described as “the star of the show” for being naturally incorporated into the dialogue and helping to normalise its use in people’s daily lives.
“My Māori heritage is something that’s really important to me, so I’ve always treasured the opportunities I’ve been given to audition for and play Māori characters and tell Māori stories,” Tatum says. “There are so many cool things being done by Māori creatives, like Ahikāroa. It was such a great show to be part of. I couldn’t properly speak Te Reo at the time; I had a basic knowledge but struggled to put together sentences. I picked up so much by being immersed in it on set every day.”
While landing roles in some of New Zealand’s biggest screen productions, and most recently the role of Cordelia in Auckland Theatre Company’s 2023 production of King Lear, Tatum has continued to audition regularly. Approaching auditions with the right mindset is another vital skill she is honing to ensure a long and sustainable career.
“As I have done more and more auditions over the years − whether it is a self-tape or a chemistry read or the third round of something, or it’s between me and one other person − I have learnt that, at the end of the day, it is a collaboration,” she says. “So if I’ve got a question, I’m going to ask it because it serves all of us — we are trying to work this out together. My mindset now is that I’m going to be as prepared as I possibly can and I’m going to walk in and show my skill set. It may be a match or it may not. And that’s okay.”
Tatum had the chance to work with some of New Zealand’s most established actors on season 2 and, more recently, season 3 of popular Australian-New Zealand comedy-drama My Life is Murder, which is broadcast in NZ, the US, the UK and Australia. “It was really cool to meet and work alongside actors who have made a great living for themselves, like Marty Henderson and Lucy Lawless,” she says. “It was quite amazing because I would go onto set, and I’d watch the way these seasoned actors worked, and they were always the calmest, the most grounded ones, yet totally switched on. They knew exactly what it was they were doing. They knew where the camera was going to move and the set-up, and so on and so forth. And they didn’t get rocked by anything. They stayed level-headed. It was inspiring for me to watch, as a younger actor, just going, Wow, they’re so organised, with their own prep and their own craft. And then, when it came to being in the room, they were keen to improv with me. I was like, Yes, I get to improv with Lucy Lawless! That’s awesome!”
Tatum’s small role on Jane Campion’s award-winning The Power of the Dog also gave her the chance to watch and learn. “I was in a scene where a group of us had to improv being rowdy and trying to annoy Benedict Cumberbatch’s character. But we had to do it in a way that was true to the time it was set — 1920s America. I was essentially a featured extra, but I got to work with amazing actors like Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons and Benedict Cumberbatch. I just wanted to be able to watch pros at the top of their game work collaboratively. They were so prepared, and I thought to myself, I could be off the set − I could be on the side and I would still be having a good time. It was so cool.”
While relishing her work opportunities and learning the art of freelancing, Tatum is, importantly, keeping it all in perspective, with a healthy dose of optimism. “I love it and I know I’m going to be doing it for the rest of my life but, at the end of the day, if I miss out on a job, if somebody else gets cast over me, that doesn’t change the definition of who I am. I know that the world doesn’t owe me anything. I know that the world doesn’t owe me anything. I really want this, but I’m not begging for it, and this mindset has given me a freedom to be able to welcome it when it does come.”
Lizzie Franks is editor of The Equity Magazine.
