Life at a crossroads

Essie Davis’ acting career has taken her places. The National Theatre in London. The Broadway stage. To Croatia for Game of Thrones. To Morocco for Miss Fisher & the Crypt of Tears, last year’s feature spin-off of her hit Australian television series Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, in which she played Phryne Fisher, the glamorous, black-bobbed private detective who solves crime in 1920s Melbourne.

Now, the Tasmanian-born and -based actress has finally added New Zealand to the list of places she has worked. She has always wanted to do something here, she tells the Listener from Toronto, where she’s filming.

But unlike most screen-star imports, Davis wasn’t here to pretend she was somewhere else on a big-budget production. She was here for , a local film of modest means but with heart, character and hidden depths.