There is something of a running joke that New Zealand is so small everyone must know one another. While that is not exactly true, it does tend to be the case that you only have one degree of separation from any other Kiwi.
Take me and Luciane Buchanan. We may have both been raised in central Auckland, but our lives have not overlapped aside from that: she went into performing arts and eventually moved to New York City; I took up journalism and moved to London. And yet, when I sat down to do my research ahead of our interview, I realised we have at least one very close mutual friend – probably more. That’s just how it is in NZ. It also means that anyone who manages to achieve international success tends to do so with a team of six million people supporting them.
To break into Hollywood from a little old country at the bottom of the world is no small feat. To do so on what was Netflix’s top running show for many weeks is almost unheard of. And yet here is Luciane Buchanan. Kiwi, Tongan, former football teammate of my friend Lily, writer, producer and that very rare thing: Netflix star.
When The Night Agent first dropped on the streaming service in 2023 – Buchanan plays lead character Rose in the high-stakes action show – it raced to the number one spot, and stayed there for four weeks. It was 2023’s most watched show on Netflix, and the company’s seventh most popular English language show of all time. Suddenly, Luciane Buchanan was in everyone’s living room, all the time. And her success isn’t stopping there.
She’s set to star in Apple TV’s Chief of War which will premiere later this year. The project took her back to New Zealand for filming, with the Bay of Islands serving as a stand-in for Hawaii. Her first foray into writing, the short film Lea Tupu’anga/Mother Tongue, premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.
We catch up on the nuanced nature of fame in New Zealand, what it means to seek success overseas, and what’s next for Buchanan in The Night Agent.
Square Mile: As a Kiwi now living in London, I know what it means to step out of that New Zealand bubble and pursue your passions. How have you found breaking into the industry – especially from that international perspective?
Luciane Buchanan: At the beginning I was very homesick. When you hit that six-month mark in your first year, you’re like, ‘I could just turn around and go home.’ But I’ve changed my perspective over the years.
There’s just so much more work in the US; so much more opportunity. And I love being surrounded by different cultures that we don’t have back home. Although I do think there are Kiwis everywhere. We kind of have pockets of communities.
SM: We are literally everywhere.
LB: Especially London. Oh my goodness. Was it Clapham?
SM: Yeah. Although they’ve kind of all migrated up north and east now.
LB: Yeah, you do your time there. It’s been really nice being a Kiwi; it’s your point of difference. Everyone’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, Flight of the Conchords!’ That’s the main thing I get over here.
SM: Really? That’s so interesting.
LB: Yeah. The West Coast is more Lord of the Rings or Taika Waititi. I’m so proud of being Kiwi as well, so I wear that with pride. But also I love embracing the culture over here and learning from the industry here. It originated here and people have been in the business for a really, really long time – so I’m just eager to learn. I do want to work in London as well, because the industry there is booming right now.
SM: You definitely should, the scene over here is really fun. I get what you mean, though. New Zealand is a really safe launch platform, but at the same time, that’s the exact reason that you have to leave it.
LB: Absolutely. It will always be home. It’s the land that I love, it raised me. I’m sure it’s the same with you, but there’s just other things that I want to tick off while I’m this age. But we have a booming industry back home, my other TV series [Chief of War] shoots half in New Zealand, so I’m not completely away.
SM: It’s nice to have the balance. So where did acting start off for you in New Zealand? What lit that spark?
LB: I’ve always wanted to do it. I was such a TV kid growing up. That was our childcare almost, because our parents were always busy working. Our grandma would be like, ‘sit in the lounge, watch TV, and I can do things around the house.’
I always bring it back to my grandma’s house being the place where our imagination grew, where we would act out scenes or do the dance routines to pop songs. Performing and storytelling were always embraced. When I was maybe 14, I did these acting classes after school at TAPAC [The Auckland Performing Arts Centre]. These girls at school, they had parents who were directors or knew Peter Jackson – they were connected, and they were like, ‘We do these acting classes’. My ears perked up. I was like, ‘What are these things and what do you do?’
Also, we’ve got that tall poppy syndrome. So you have a dream, but you don’t make it known. But once I started doing those classes, I begged my dad, ‘Please, can I do this thing?’ And he’s like, ‘But you’re doing soccer and netball and cricket and water polo.’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’m going to quit all of it. I want to just do this.’ It’s kind of cool to look back, appreciating that I knew exactly what I wanted to do.
SM: What was the first role you got where you were like, ‘Yes, I’ve got this’?
LB: I was still in high school. I was 17. It was my second audition ever, for a TV movie called Billy. I don’t know if you know Billy T James – he’s a famous comedian who passed away. I played his daughter in his biopic. My dad dropped me off to set, and I remember I was just too old to have a chaperone look after me – I think you needed to be under 16 – and I literally had no idea what I was doing. Like, where do I go? I don’t know what a call sheet is. I don’t know any of the lingo. It was quite funny.
I had a crying scene to do. We all had to be upset. They were taking his body to an urupā, which is a burial place, and it was a really heavy first-ever day on set. For some reason it felt really real. All of us after cuts were still sobbing. We all felt really connected to the story.
My first lesson ever was: hold your tears for your take, because I was the last closeup of the day and just couldn’t cry. I had cried everyone else’s tears when I was not on camera. That’s been how I’ve learned throughout the years – just making mistakes and being like, ‘OK, next time.’
SM: Going back to what you were mentioning a little bit earlier about tall poppy syndrome. Is that something that you’ve had to deal with – now you actually are a tall poppy?
LB: No, not really. I still think a lot of people don’t know who I am, which is great. But I’ve had nothing but support. I think I’ve done a bunch of interviews back home and everyone’s just super proud. Also in my Pacifica community, I think a lot of them are like, ‘We don’t even know what the show’s about, but we support you,’ which is lovely because you hear things of the opposite sometimes. But I’m very lucky that that hasn’t happened yet.
SM: I do feel when someone gets really famous outside of New Zealand, it’s almost like the whole country claims you in a way. How do you grapple with that as a concept?
LB: Well, I don’t know. I haven’t had that moment here. I think in my mind, I don’t realise how big the show is. I don’t think it will ever click.
SM: Speaking of the show, it’s been two years since its release. How has your life changed in those intervening two years?
LB: Oh my gosh, so much. I mean, I was a struggling actor, and I was ready to give it up, which is strange because for ten years I was like, ‘This is what I’m meant to do.’
I had experiences behind the camera, writing and associate producing. In a weird way, I got a kick out of that as much as I would when I would film a scene really well. I’m creatively fulfilled in both areas. Maybe acting is not the path. But as soon as you feel like that, the opportunity is like, ‘Hi!’ So, I decided to ride this wave and see what happens.
Doors have opened in so many ways in terms of people wanting to work with me or people wanting me to read their scripts, being signed to wonderful, amazing agents. The opportunities have been crazy. People that I admire liking my work; that’s something crazy to think about sometimes. I feel really lucky in that respect.
SM: You’re filming Chief of War in New Zealand. What was it like working on a project of that scale back home?
LB: It was crazy. I think the coolest part was day one. It was a scene with me and Jason Momoa. We shot it the whole day and I worked really, really hard – like two months on it – because we were speaking Hawaiian, not English.
I was freaking out. It was five pages long and I made sure that I was super prepared. A lot of the crew there had worked with me when I was 17 on Billy. They were like, ‘It is so cool to see you toe to toe with Jason doing this, speaking another language. Like, you’re off book, no script in your hand; it’s just been so cool to watch your journey.’ I was like, ‘Don’t make me cry! This is our first day. We’ve got the whole six months to go!’ But moments like that are really special and the crew are constantly there, but they’re always watching and taking notice of little things. That was a crazy moment for me, just knowing that we are a film family back home.
SM: I feel like there’s so much more Pacific Island and Maori storylines coming to screen outside of just the scope of New Zealand. With your short film as well, which went to Sundance. What was it like bringing a story like that to an audience much less familiar with those dynamics?
LB: I was so nervous. This is such a specific story about a specific culture within New Zealand. I didn’t know if anyone was going to understand the nuances. It was really cool, though, because the way that they run the festival is that you are in different short film categories, so you get to know all the other filmmakers.
The first night we premiered, we were all sitting in different rows. So someone behind us, someone in front of us, and we’re all talking before the screening – ‘so what’s your film about?’ That kind of thing. There was a group behind us from Texas. And they were like, ‘Tell me about your film.’ I was like, oh, here we go. I’ll try and explain this really complex idea. And they were like, ‘Oh, cool.’ I didn’t expect them to understand, because they’re caucasian and from the south. But as soon as the film was over the three of them just grabbed my shoulder and were like, ‘That was so beautiful’. They just got it.
And we had other people from all walks of life just hugging us, crying, saying how much they resonated with the subject matter. I realised that maybe the themes are more universal than I thought. So that was really beautiful.
There’s actually a lot of Tongan people in Utah because it’s a Mormon state. So we managed to have a community screening. You’re not normally meant to show your film outside of the festival, but they made an exception. So I put it on my Instagram, saying, ‘Come see our film if you’re interested.’ And it sold out in two hours. There’s such a community out there, and there were a lot of tears and a lot of energy. It was the most special week.
SM: Your character in The Night Agent is a bit of a tech whiz. Are you particularly tech savvy in real life?
LB: Absolutely not. I did work in a JB Hi Fi [a New Zealand electronics store] when I was in college, so all my friends call me with, ‘Hey, I need to troubleshoot this’, and I’m like, ‘Just because I worked at an electronics store, does not mean I’m an IT girl!’ I wouldn’t say I’m bad, but I still type using the first three fingers. So it’s quite funny that I have to play that part.
SM: Does it require really embedding yourself into that vocation?
LB: We made so many jokes about it. I would always say the co-star I worked with the most was a screen – it’s always a laptop, different monitors, a phone, and it’s someone from the crew reading the offlines, rather than another actor. They’re always blank screens that they replace with information later. So you just have to imagine that you’re looking at things; it’s quite challenging.
SM: Like when you’re playing tea parties with kids and you’re like, ‘There’s definitely tea in this cup!’
LB: Exactly that. That’s our job. I always make friends with the IT guys on The Night Agent because they do all the graphics and they press all the buttons to get the screens to change. They end up being so close to me because I’m like, ‘I need you! I rely on you to do my job!’
SM: I was reading that it hasn’t yet been fully announced whether or not your character will be coming back for season three, but if she does, what direction would you hope for her to go in?
LB: I said this around season two, but I find her company quite interesting – particularly the AdVerse tracking tool. She mentions in a line that in the wrong hands, this can be really dangerous – in terms of the government using it. I think watching current events of the tech world and its influence on political outcomes, I find that really fascinating and almost as scary as the other things that we explore in the show. So yeah, we’ll see what happens and where season three takes Rose.
SM: What does it feel like when you have embodied somebody for so long to then have that out in the world and have people interpret that person?
LB: There are hilarious theories and I’m like, ‘That is so off the mark.’ Especially from my mum, actually. She’s like, ‘I have a theory, it’s this, this and this.’ And I’m like, ‘You’re so wrong, but that’s OK.’
When season two launched, I was an absolute mess – wondering if people love it, if people hate it. You can’t control it. I’m just learning that for the first time because it’s not just a show that’s coming out on TV Three back home on the networks. The world is watching, and because people love the characters from season one, there’s expectations that are met or not met. So I’m learning how to get through it.
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SM: Moving onto New York City. How long have you been living there for?
LB: I moved here at the end of 2023 after the strike. They announced that we were shooting here. I was on set in New Zealand and I ran up to my makeup artist and I’m like, ‘New York City!’
I don’t know if you remember the show, The City, a spinoff of The Hills, where Whitney [Port] goes to the city. I watched it when I was younger, and was like, ‘I’m going to live in New York’. So for it to actually happen is a dream come true because it’s not an easy city to live in. It’s not for the faint-hearted.
SM: Will you be there for the long haul? Do you have any plans to go home?
LB: Hopefully there’ll be some stuff coming up back home. Fingers crossed. But I’m really jealous of this summer right now. My friends are going to the most beautiful places and putting them on their Stories. So I’m feeling a little homesick this week.
Crayfish. When anyone puts a crayfish on their story, I’m like, ‘Are you joking?’ But, no, I’m going to see it through. My five-year plan is to gun it, throw myself into work and just go for it. So that in the latter half of my thirties, I can just chill.
I want to give it a good shot and there are so many things that I want to do here. There’s so many great learning opportunities. I want to do improv classes. I want to do body work, and they’re all here, so I may as well. The girl from The Night Agent wants to learn.
SM: What is next for you?
LB: Right now, I can’t really talk about them. But I made a pact with myself that the next thing I write, I want to direct and not act in it. I think the film we took to Sundance was too much for my brain. After a scene, I’d wonder if we got everything.
There’s a story that I’ve been sitting on for eight years, and I want to finish it within the year – write it and shoot it.
So I’m going to do that today as well – have another jam at the script. This is me holding myself accountable!
The Night Agent S2 is available on Netflix.
