Simone Nathan has worked with Amy Schumer, written for Taika Waititi, and was the lead actor, writer and executive producer on her own hit TV show - Kid Sister.
Aucklander Nathan spent five years in New York after gaining a scholarship to the Tisch Writing School of the Arts, where she won an award that would lead her eventually to working with Taika Waititi on Our Flag Means Death.
She joined Jesse Mulligan to talk about writing, New Zealand's small Jewish community ("I love the J-com"), why she's a Si-mohn not a Si-moan and how she loves to clean up an old, mossy headstone.
Photo: Michelle Hyslop
When she was at Tisch she wrote a feature film script about Hongi Hika, she told Jesse Mulligan.
"It was like a historical film and the tone of it was modern dialogue and it was comedic. I knew I was never going to make that film, but it was a passion project and I wanted to write the story.
"And then years and years later the man who was finding writers for the TV show Our Flag Means Death, he read that script and was like 'oh you're doing what we're trying to do with this show, where it's set a long time ago but people talk how they talk now'. And that was how I got staffed on my first writing job."
Kid Sister, her family sitcom based on Lulu, a Jewish girl in New Zealand, is filming its second series.
"It's good to write something that is more personal to you and is more your story to tell.
"I think I've been trying to write other people's stories and find books that I wanted to adapt but a lot of my favourite works by other writer and directors are their story - you can feel when it's them."
There is a universal story in Kid Sister, she says.
"It's about struggling to find boundaries as you cross over into adulthood, especially when so many of us millennials still live at home and still can't afford to move out. How do you become an adult while you're still in your childhood bedroom?"
Her partner, comedian/musician Paul Williams, co-stars in Kid Sister.
"He's a sweetie. He's very different to me, we have completely opposite personalities, when I first met him I thought he was so weird, I thought what's wrong with that guy?"
Together now for five years, they are both in the process of converting to Orthodox Judaism.
"That's been very interesting as you can imagine, and we actually do that through the Sydney Beth Din which is the over-seeing body of rabbis.
"I grew up modern orthodox, we wear the kippah, the little hat, keep kosher, or don't, observe the Sabbath but it's very community-driven and it's not the same one that's hats and the curls.
"There's a million different ways of practising; some are cultural Jews, for us it's like when you're going through this process you sort of have to max out Jewishly and go to the extreme for a year or two to experience that and you can decide afterwards what kind of Jew you want to be."
And about that headstone-cleaning compulsion - it started during lockdown, she says.
"I started cleaning headstones three years ago, but I only do it for family who have given permission and it is the greatest, most rewarding experience to get the tools, go there, spend time revealing what's underneath all the moss and dirt."
Music
'Plastic' - Moses Sumney
"I just think that Moses has the most unique voice and a really original style of song writing and he's the whole package because he's so beautiful and his voice is so like butter he's one of those songwriters that you feel you know them."
'Fanny (Be Tender With My Love)' - The Bee Gees
"It's got the word fanny in it and also it's a beautiful love song and a complete ear worm, there's just something wonderful about the Bee Gees and the sort of Muppet-like nature of the way they sing. Their harmonies are unmatched."
'Crush Crush' (ft Doug Colling and General Greavis) - Paul Williams.
Books
Isaac and the Egg by Bobby Palmer
"A friend gave this to me for my birthday and I'm only just getting back into reading, kind of re-learning how.
"Elevator pitch: A man who is grieving finds an egg in the forest, a giant egg, and decides to take it home … and I'm not going to say anything else!"
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
"The story is not what people think it is and that's why I think people should read it because there's a really, really beautiful great story in there and a lot of elements of it that haven't been adapted to the film versions.
"It's not what you imagine with a real square-headed dude with knobs in his neck, that's in too, but it's way more than that. The monster is so wonderful."
Simone also chose the Harry Potter audiobooks read by Stephen Fry and The Tiger Who Came To Tea by Judith Kerr.
"There's something absolutely fantastic about the image of this huge tiger that walks into a house on two legs and wants to eat all the food in this girl's house."
Film and TV
Benny and Joon
"I used to have a huge crush on him (Johnny Depp) actually from Pirates of the Caribbean, my heart was in two places Orlando Bloom and Johnny Depp from those films and it was a huge sexual awakening or me - I had posters of both of them on my bedroom wall.
"When my dad would go on trips he would bring home DVDs I discovered this really weird one called Benny and Joon, it's beautiful, it's got a great sound track, it's so random."
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
"I feel a bit basic loving it so much."
Simone also chose British TV comedy Black Books
Podcasts
"I'm a podcast queen."
Normal Gossip on Radiotopia
Criminal, hosted by Phoebe Judge
Poog, hosted by Kate Berlant and Jacqueline Novak
