PHOTO: Angela Bloomfield. SUPPLIED
Angela Bloomfield: From Real Estate to Prime-Time Drama on The Brokenwood Mysteries
Angela Bloomfield, renowned for her iconic role as Rachel McKenna on Shortland Street, has recently shifted her primary focus from television to the property market. Now an Auckland real estate agent, Bloomfield celebrates a successful week of house sales when TV Guide catches up with her. However, she isn’t entirely stepping away from the screen.
Bloomfield makes a highly anticipated return to television with a guest appearance on The Brokenwood Mysteries. Her role in the popular local crime drama is something she pursued vigorously. “I begged them,” she reveals, recounting her persistent texts and calls to Tim Balme, the show’s head writer, over the past few years. “I’ve literally been texting and ringing Tim for a couple of years saying, ‘When are you going to put me in your show?’” Her persistence paid off, leading to her cameo in the fourth episode of the season airing on July 7.
In this episode, Bloomfield portrays Laura, the unfortunate wife of a dentist who ends up as the murder victim. Joining her are several former Shortland Street colleagues, including Amelia Reid-Meredith, Shane Cortese, Roy Ward, and series regular Jarod Rawiri. Bloomfield describes the experience of playing a corpse with humor, noting the contrast between her dialogue-heavy past roles and her current state of stillness. “The victim on Brokenwood tends to spend a good day lying around being a dead person,” she remarks. “It’s a bit boring compared to a scene where you have dialogue and you’re interacting with people.”
Despite the challenges of lying motionless on a morgue table, Bloomfield found joy in reconnecting with friends and the production crew. “Personally, I just loved hanging out on the Brokenwood set. I hadn’t been on a set for years, and I was surrounded by friends, cast, and crew, so it was a lot of fun,” she says. She also appreciated the attentiveness of the wardrobe and art department, who ensured her comfort during filming.
While real estate is currently Bloomfield’s primary career, her passion for acting remains undiminished. “If someone said to me, ‘Do you want to be in my show?’, I’d say, ‘Yeah, I do,’ but I don’t have that happening in my life,” she shares candidly. For now, real estate provides the flexibility she needs to balance her responsibilities, including raising her children and managing household expenses. The nature of the job allows her to manage her own schedule, making it a fitting complement to her ongoing auditions and occasional teaching and voiceover work.
Comparing her real estate career to acting, Bloomfield finds unexpected parallels. “You’d be surprised at the level of similarity,” she explains. Both fields involve a degree of script-like preparation and the ability to read people, assess their needs, and communicate effectively. “Basically, you’re meeting buyers all the time, and it’s the same conversation that you’re having. When you’re pitching yourself to sell someone’s house, you’re saying the same thing. So it’s quite similar.”
Angela Bloomfield’s episode of The Brokenwood Mysteries airs on TVNZ+.
SOURCE: THE PRESS