Here, she’s the toast of the nation – an actress of humour and substance, who has (with the help
of excellent scriptwriters and superb direction, she’s quick to point out) created a character who will be loved by the viewing public long after the final episode of Outrageous Fortune airs.

But until late last year, halfway through filming the current – and final – series of the hit TV3 drama, Robyn Malcolm had little idea how she was perceived in Australia.

Dashing across the Tasman to meet casting directors during a quiet period in her usually hectic filming schedule, and understandably nervous about her prospects, she handed her passport to the border control guard at Sydney Airport. “Why ees eet,” he drawled, “that the best theeng on Austroiian toi-voi ees a bloody Kiwi show? G’day, Meesus West!’”

Robyn, on the phone from her Balmain apartment, hoots with laughter at the memory. “Oh my God, I felt immediately welcome,” she says. “And now, I say hello to that guy whenever I see him!”

Robyn – better known as the indomitable Cheryl West, whom she has played since 2005 – is coming to the end of a period in which she has not only juggled the demands of work and family, but heaped yet another stress on top of what is already a pressured life.

She’s been shuttling regularly back and forth between New Zealand and Oz – leaving her adored boys Charlie (6) and Pete (4) in Auckland – working doggedly to secure new roles.

And while over 700,000 Kiwis were undoubtedly relieved that their treasured Cheryl dodged a deadly bullet to return to our screens on 13 July, the actress who plays her has been quietly tackling the task of laying a very big character to rest.

“I have grieved for Cheryl,” admits Robyn. “When you do a long-running series like this, your relationship with the character is ongoing. They become real to you. “Antonia Prebble [who plays Loretta West] said to me the other day, ‘I love Loretta, I love being her, and I’ve suddenly realised that I’m not going to be able to be her anymore.’ And, gosh, that is something that can be really emotional when you’re experiencing it for the first time. I think that’s why all actors are so gloriously nuts – because we have all these invisible friends who are actually visible and kind of real to audiences in TV fantasy land. It’s a twilight zone.”

Robyn explains how she, knowing another series would not be commissioned, bade farewell not only to her castmates – “Kirk Torrence [Wayne Judd] and I had a moment where we both teared up” – but to the crew, the catering staff and even the set.

“I’ve spent more time in the West house than I have in my own house,” she says. “I know every single nook and cranny of it – the textures of the wallpapers in each room, and where in the kitchen there’s the most dirt on the lino. I know where all the different ornaments are and the smell of it. I would go and look in the house and grieve that this would soon be over.

“One day, I stood on the balcony, and from there you can see pretty much all of west Auckland. I took a moment, knowing I probably wouldn’t see that view again. It’s such a strange thing.”

She had a special farewell lunch with “the kids” – Pascalle (Siobhan Marshall), Loretta, (Antonia Prebble), Jethro and Van (Antony Starr) and then, when episode one of this series aired she had “20 of the troops” over to her Auckland home for Cheryl’s famous fish pie.

“Actually,” she admits, “I did my own version of it. I bought some smoked fish called alfonsino, which is very poncy, and I used organic cream and lots of parsley from my garden – I ‘Robyned’ it. So it was Cheryl’s flash organic fish pie! Then we all drank rum and cokes, danced to Neneh Cherry, huddled around a bonfire and
jumped on the trampoline…”

Sounds like quite the party – but it was tinged with sadness for everyone who has spent the last six years creating a show that is now so firmly entrenched in the hearts and minds of Kiwis.

“Oddly enough,” continues Robyn, “it was once I was standing on a different set in a different country with a different crew that, even though I was really enjoying myself, I really missed the Outrageous Fortune cast and crew.”

Any concerns about whether her impressive resumé would hold water in Australia evaporated after that very first day at customs – the Aussies love Outrageous Fortune almost as much as we do and our closest neighbours are currently well into season five of the award-winning show.

When we speak, Robyn’s about to head to a wrap party for new TV series Rake, in which she is a guest character.

Fellow Kiwi Danielle Cormack is a series regular and Robyn says the show looks “absolutely bloody brilliant”. In addition, she’s picked up a small role in Aussie film Burning Man, alongside Rachel Griffiths and Kerry Fox, and says, frankly, “I’ve been networking my tits off.”

“I wanted to get into the Australian market so I would be scared again, so I would be hungry and challenged,” says Robyn. “I wanted to feel like I was starting from the bottom – I didn’t want to get too comfortable. But it’s that old chestnut of being careful what you wish for because that’s exactly what has happened.

“They have got some damn good actresses over here and I have to wait in line! I’ve been getting lots of what I call ‘high-class losses’ – I get close to a big role then lose it to a fabulous local actress.”

Robyn – who split from her husband Allan Clark in 2005 – says she’s chosen not to disrupt the kids’ lives during her own transition to, as she puts it, an “Australasian” actress. So, the boys stay with their dad while Robyn works.

“He’s the reason I’m able to do this. He’s got this wonderful girlfriend and we’re all great friends. He really stepped up to the plate and said, ‘Rob, I owe you this,’ which was amazing and fantastic.” But, as harmonious as the arrangement is, as every mother knows, being away is a massive wrench. Robyn takes a deep breath before talking about her boys.

“They’re perfectly happy,” she begins, “because the size of their Lego collection is proportionately related to the amount of time Mummy spends out of the country. And I’m never away for more than four or five days. One minute I feel like I’m messing them up and then they’ll say, ‘When are you going again, Mummy, because did you know you can get the Lego Death Star in Australia?’

“But I miss the mornings in particular, when two little sets of feet come padding down the hallway and the kids appear, laden with soft toys, and we all lie in bed and chat.

“Charlie asked the other day how we built the world. Both boys want to know how babies are born at the moment, because my sister, their Auntie Jen, just had her first baby. Pete wanted to know whether ‘seed fishies’ that daddies have are faster or slower than ants... I miss that.

“What’s fascinating for me now is that I don’t like being by myself. I don’t like not being able to be a mum to my boys. It feel swrong. I feel like my arms are chopped off and I’m operating at half speed. Someone once said, ‘When you become a mother, you sink into the warm chaos of love.’ It’s true – and I need the chaos!”

She laughs, adding, “Which is not to say that having time to have a coffee, read the paper and do a Pilates class isn’t lovely too. Sh*t yeah!”

It’s the guilt, says Robyn, that’s impossible to shake, but goes with the territory of being away. “It’s there because of the choices I’m making and I have to suck it up, really. I keep waiting for the moment the wheels fall off and it’s proven to me that I’ve done a bad thing. But so far, that’s not happening and the boys are really secure and happy.

“Allan’s put a big map of Australia and one of New Zealand in their room and lots of sticky planes everywhere to show where Mummy is and little charts that tell how many sleeps until Mummy comes home. “Actually,” she laughs, “I suspect that the person that has suffered the most is me, which is exactly as it should be.”

Did she consider packing up the children and bringing them too? “Yes, and I still am considering that,” Robyn tells. “The boys love Australia. They came and spent a few weeks with me. It’s an exciting place for them because of the killing capacity of so many animals. They’re like, ‘Is that a deadly snake, Mummy?’... ‘No, it’s a stick’; ‘Are there bull sharks in the harbour?’... ‘Probably.’ They’re in heaven knowing that a Redback spider could be on the toilet seat.”

“But,” she continues, “Pete starts school at the end of the year so I need to think about what’s best for him and for Charlie. Their dad’s in Auckland – he’s a spectacular dad and their relationship with him is terribly important.

And I don’t want to trawl them all over the world, necessarily. The kids are wrapped inside a circle of grown-ups in New Zealand who would walk across hot coals to love and take care of them and to shake that up would be a big deal... we’ll see.”

So for now, says Robyn, she will continue to feel like a woman adrift on the ocean, somewhere between New Zealand and Australia “with a sign that reads ‘actor for hire.’” and a large bag of Lego. She’ll be back in New Zealand for the medium term, at least, performing the lead in Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days at Auckland’s Silo Theatre – a play in which she will be buried, first to her waist and later to her neck, in sand.

“It sounds wacky but it’s an amazing piece,” Robyn enthuses. “It’s a great work of art and a complete privilege." She’s also the lead in the Kiwi go-karting film The Hopes & Dreams of Gazza Snell, currently showing as part of the New Zealand International Film Festival circuit and awaiting its January general release.

Beyond that, she has no firm idea what the future holds, but is open to suggestions. “To be honest,” she says, “the words that I associate most with this past year are ‘I don’t know’. And that’s kind of liberating. “I’m horribly driven and ambitious and can’t imagine not doing what I do. But when I measure the satisfaction I get from my work to the simple rightness and happiness I feel being Charlie and Pete’s mummy – being there while they find their way through each day – there’s no comparison.

For the moment, we’re able to manage both, and I feel enormous gratitude for that. I’m very lucky, I think.”