When Teuila Blakely heard her mate Robbie Magasiva was taking a role on Shortland Street as Dr Maxwell Avia, she joked to friends about ringing the show’s producers to say she would be perfect to play his ex.

Fast-forward a few months and her casual joke has become reality, with the gorgeous 35-year-old appearing opposite Robbie as his estranged wife Vasa Levi in the iconic soap. Teuila, who has presented on C4, hosted a radio show on Flava FM, had roles in Outrageous Fortune and bro’Town and starred in local film Sione’s Wedding, is thrilled about her new part.

However, she is quick to point out she’s nothing like the feisty, trouble-making character she has been cast to portray. “We have similarities,” Teuila muses. “She’s spent a lot of her life as a single parent and I am a single parent. But she’s got a very different approach to the way she parents and the way she lives her life. I would never do half the things she does!”

The energetic mum, who fell pregnant with son Jared (18) when she was just 16 years old, says she draws inspiration for tough-talking Vasa from her own mother, who is a chief in Samoa. “She’s a very strong woman, but she wasn’t very hands-on at times. My father has been the constant parent in my life,” she adds.

One of five siblings, Teuila says she and her mother, a devout Mormon, became estranged after Jared’s birth for around seven years. It was clearly a painful time for the stunning actress, but after a reconciliation in 1999, Teuila says she now loves to visit her Mother in Samoa whenever possible.

Playing Vasa has made her scrutinise the nature of her own parenting more closely, though.
“As a parent, you learn as you go and you make these horrendous mistakes because you don’t know what you’re doing! “My son is amazing,” she says, smiling. “And he’s turned out exceedingly well, given his unusual parenting. There’s been no convention to our lives, especially with what I do.”

That lack of convention has only served to bring these two closer, with Teuila dreading the day Jared decides to move out of their west Auckland home. “There’s no hurry,” she says with a slight shake in her voice. “We’re very close; it’s always been just the two of us. He’s watched me grow up as well, so we have a very different relationship, but I love it. He’s the apple of my eye,” she adds, wiping away some sudden tears.

Teuila admits there were times, when raising her young son, working in retail jobs and trying to break into acting, that her future felt “pretty dismal”. But she persevered, and created her own big break in 2003 when she wrote and starred in the acclaimed play, Island Girls. The devoted mother says she wrote the play on advice from her friend and current housemate Oscar Kightley, a creator of bro’Town and fellow Sione’s Wedding star.

They were once engaged but since breaking up seven years ago, have become even closer friends. “He’s one of the constants in my life and I haven’t had a lot, so I love that he’s there for me. But I’m perfectly happy being single and living my life the way I want to at the moment.”

As well as living together, along with Kiwi rapper Scribe, Teuila and Oscar have been working on the TV3 comedy series RadiRadiRah, which also stars Flight of the Conchords’ Rhys Darby and film-maker Taika Waititi.

“I feel privileged with the people I get to work with and the things I get to do,” Teuila says of the show. “I love getting to work with Rhys and Taika – they are excruciatingly hilarious.” It was also an opportunity to play characters she would never usually have a chance to portray. “As Pacific Island actors, we tend to be cast in specific roles, so I love that I can play an English handmaiden and a space cadet,” she says with a laugh.

However, she is also proud to be part of the first ever Polynesian family to be included in Shortland Street, as she sees it as a step toward normalising Pacific Island actors in mainstream shows. Although she has one concern about taking on the role: The light-hearted mockery she is bound to get from the rest of the bro’Town boys. “They’re already teasing me about having to pash Robbie,” she laughs. “This will be their new game; they’ll probably call me Vasa from now on. It’s going to get annoying!”