The show is shot in New Zealand on hi-def. Do you prefer shooting the show so close to home and also using digital cameras as opposed to film?

We are trying to do a film in fast turnaround TV time, you know? And we just can’t afford shooting on film I mean, we just don’t have the budget. What we want to recreate in other areas, set designs, visual effects and make-up, you know, by doing this great HD technology, we’re afforded [to be able to] keep rolling, keep going with fast turnarounds and a lot of the time we’ll keep the camera rolling for new ideas, keep it going, pick it up, just to get through it. ‘Cause if we had film we wouldn’t have time to do that. You’d need a lot more rehearsal time and we don’t have a lot of time for rehearsal to be honest actually.

I’m going to go off topic a bit here for a moment. Did you watch the sitcom Friends? Because I read that you enjoy playing soccer, volleyball, tennis, swimming, skiing, snowboarding and kayaking. Now is this actually true or are any these resume fillers like Joey had on that show?

[Laughs] That’s hilarious! Yeah, yeah, look, I’ll admit, I did the old “resume inflation.” I kind of embellished a bit but look, I’d say about 80% of that is true. I have actually been kayaking and snowboarding.

More at Thud.
March, 2009.