Stars of the Oamaru-filmed East of Eden have heaped praise on the Southern landscapes, old towns and settings which starred in the global hit Netflix series.
Oamaru, Dunedin and Otago, including the arid landscapes of Central Otago, were central to the series — filling in for the United States.
Actor Florence Pugh, who played the lead role of Cathy in the adaptation of John Steinbeck’s classic, said New Zealand “really felt like a perfect match”.
“It’s such a beautiful place, the people are amazing, the culture is amazing.
“The respect to ancestry and the land is something that I just want to take forward into my life every day.”
Pugh was speaking in a video recently released by the New Zealand Film Commission and Netflix — also featuring other cast and crew.
The video was played during a recent screening of the series at the Oamaru Opera House.
Presumably in a reference to Oamaru’s iconic Victorian buildings, series director Garth Davis said there were “still some very old towns with period architecture” in New Zealand.
“It just has that epic scope and its relatively untouched as well,” he said, of the country.
Mike Faist, who played Charles Trask, said “one of the greatest things we got to experience before we started was a whakatau ceremony, where the rightful owners of the land — the Māori tribe — welcomed us to a ceremony where they blessed us and allowed us to use the land for the sake of what we were doing here”.
“It was quite an emotional experience.”
Te Rūnanga o Moeraki upoko Dave Higgins took karakia before filming began in Oamaru in January last year.
Production designer Grant Major praised the “beautiful part of the country” in the South Island where filming took place.
“It was the landscape that brought us there,” he said.
Zoe Kazan, the writer, co-showrunner and executive producer of the show, summed it up, “I just feel very lucky that we got to film here”.