Julia Zemiro's Home Delivery

Hello. Welcome to a brand-new series of Julia Zemiro's Home Delivery.

Now, you're taking your life in your hands, Julia.

I hope you know that. Oh, mate.

This series I'll be meeting amazing people with extraordinary stories.

We'll be going back to their first homes...

And it was wood panelling everywhere.

I mean, it's just... it's unrecognisable.

..schools... It was just a great place to be.

..universities... You had to come here.

..first work places...

I wrote that when I was 13. That is appalling journalism.

..favourite places...

From the first moment we came I belonged.

..and we may even let them show off their secret skills.

That one!

I can't wait.

I'm in Wellington, New Zealand, to meet an actress

who has lit up our TV screens for decades.

Whether she's a plucky, young aircraft mechanic,

a troubled forensic psychiatrist,

a loving mother and wife or indeed a woman on the run,

she has commanded our attention every step of the way.

It's Rebecca Gibney.

Well, hello, the lovely Rebecca. Hello! How are you?

Good, thank you.

Welcome to Wellington. I was going to say, how fantastic!

Near the cable car. Near the cable car.

You left New Zealand a long time ago but you're back.

I did, in 1984 and I am back.

Are you bi-Tasman, do you think? I think I am now.

I've got a foot in both. That's what I love.

Although I have lived in Australia more than New Zealand.

Well, take me on this cable car

'cause I'm literally that excited, like a child.

Walk this way.

I was on this all the time. Really?

Yep. To go where?

Into town. Into town!

I feel like a child.

It's like a ride. Yeah.

The lights in the tunnel. It's a disco.

Look, mate, admit it.

That's what you were after all along, wasn't it?

Since first crossing the Tasman in the mid 1980s,

Rebecca Gibney has been gracing our television screens.

Her fish pendant. She had it on at the hospital.

She starred in The Flying Doctors, Halifax FP,

Packed To The Rafters and Wanted.

She has accumulated scores of awards for her work.

Rebecca Gibney.

Including taking home the Gold Logie in 2009.

This is so bloody marvellous.

Thank you for that cable car experience

but I've bought you a Mini, just for today.

Oh, my God.

Now, what is the significance of the Mini in the Gibney world?

The Mini, this is my fist car.

Your first car?

This was my very first car that I paid for myself.

I saved up all my money and it was, like, $1,600.

Mine had a gold racing stripe down the middle.

And why a Mini?

They were sexy cars.

And they were little and I knew that I could actually drive it,

'cause it was so tiny you could park it anywhere.

Now, normally we would go to the house first.

I know you're feeling a little bit nervous about going there first up.

I am a bit, yeah.

So shall we go to the primary school first?

Let's go to the primary school. Excellent.

Oh, shit!

Oh, this is so fun.

Oh, look at her go!

Does being back in Wellington make you happy?

It makes me very happy.

Oh, it's gorgeous.

Now, you moved a lot as a kid. I did.

We moved to Wellington when I was about 10,

but before that I probably lived in about 10 homes.

Why did you keep moving so much?

Dad was a heavy drinker and so there was that.

I think he was always changing jobs and stuff

and Mum got different opportunities.

Now, why are we going off to this school?

Well, this is the school...

When I first moved to Wellington, this was my school, Kelburn Normal.

This is my school!

Oh, wow. Look at this.

How divine.

The sign's the same!

That was a pool. A pool?

That was a swimming pool.

What happened one day, we were in getting changed,

and my girlfriend, who shall remain nameless,

used to get really nervous.

So she'd always get changed and put her swimmers on under her towel

and this one day we got distracted or something and we all ran out,

took our towels off and jumped in

and she had forgot to put her bottoms on.

And she jumped into the pool without her bottoms on.

Naked. Oh, naked.

But what's school if not a moment of embarrassment

a few times or 100?

Oh, wow.

This corridor is definitely the same.

You were a good student here, weren't you?

I was a very good student.

I was determined to be

the first female Prime Minister of New Zealand.

That's great.

Wow.

Oh.

Is this a room that you remember?

I vaguely remember it.

You can tell by the heaters

'cause they have been there a thousand years.

Yeah, and they're good. They work. They really do.

How does it feel being here in this little, little room?

I feel safe here. It's lovely.

Because you look at all the beautiful drawings

and it's children's imagination...

They're just free to come up with anything.

Just some of the things that they come up with,

it makes me feel really happy.

'Cause it was my happy place being here.

And there was a period there of about two or three years

when my father stopped drinking.

It was illness that stopped him drinking, though, wasn't it?

Yeah, he had a stroke and I think it gave him a real fright

because he was only in his 40s when he had his first stroke,

and so he gave up drinking for about two years.

And that was amazing.

I think that's when I started to really do well at school

because he was paying attention.

I'd come home and I'd go, "Look at my grades,"

and he was actually interested in it

and so things were really looking good.

You've got lots of siblings but there was quite an age difference.

So did you almost have an only-child experience?

Yeah, pretty much.

Like, they all were, like, part of the busy bee club.

They'd all go off into my sister's bedroom

and they'd have these kind of games and stuff

and I'd be sitting outside on the step by myself.

So I always wanted to do the right thing

to try and get attention, I think.

Were you spoilt? I was a spoilt brat.

Because by the time I came along Mum had a bit more money,

so I got the singing lessons,

I got the dancing lessons, I got to go to gymnastics,

I got trampolining lessons, voice lessons.

Mum gave me all the things she couldn't give everyone else,

which she is constantly reminded about by them all the time.

You said before you wanted to be the first female Prime Minister.

I did. Thank you, Helen Clark, I did.

So how does a little kid get that concept in her head, do you think?

Well, Mum was heavily involved with Labour.

She loved the Labour movement.

So we would quite often go down to Parliament

just to watch the politicians. Fantastic.

Yeah, so I'd be sitting up in the gallery just watching it.

I was fascinated with them all.

So I went, "Oh, I could do that. I could argue.

"I could argue those points."

And they, they seemed like school children.

Do you think you could go into politics now?

Oh, God, no. It's too hard! No.

'Cause I'm still not hugely comfortable with public speaking.

I still get terribly nervous and panic attacks,

the thought of them come back.

Different to being on camera on a set.

Yeah, in a safe environment where you know everyone.

Yeah, correct. No panic attacks.

I mean, I had them from the age of about 14

until I was about 32, I suffered them.

Wow. Yeah.

Alright, top of the class, Let's move on.

OK.

So were those classes you did as a kid... did they come in useful?

I dance in my undies. I dance in my T-shirt...

Absolutely. ..around the house.

Because we did it as 20-year-olds.

Why do we stop? I don't stop.

I know that big, ugly, concrete building

that we're heading up towards. Oh.

That's how she sees her high school.

We can just drive past it

'cause that's about as long as I spent there.

How long were you there for?

A year and a half, maybe two.

Alright, so you leave primary school,

possibly as the new future Prime Minister, you get here...

What changes? I think there's a number of factors.

Puberty was one.

My Dad, um, wasn't well but was drinking again,

so I kind of thought, "Well, he doesn't really care, so..."

A good girlfriend of mine, um, needed fostering

'cause she wasn't getting on with her parents.

So she came and lived with us... Oh, right.

..for a couple of years,