Calling Home: Jessica Hobbs in London

It's been a big week for New Zealand TV director Jessica Hobbs following her breakthrough Emmy win for her work on The Crown.

The London-based filmmaker was born into the industry, having joined her mum, director Aileen O'Sullivan, on set for a role in local mini-series The Governor as a child.

After becoming an assistant director on films like Dame Jane Campion's An Angel at My Table, Hobbs went on to Australia, where she directed shows like Heartbreak High and The Slap, which got her invited to the UK to work on Broadchurch. The rest, as they say, is history.

Hobbs said awards ceremonies are always "quite loaded occasions" and she was not expecting to get an Emmy.

"And then I had that very odd sensation of kind of time travelling backwards and me thinking 'oh, oh my god I think they just said my name - now I have to do something'."

She said prior to the announcement she was quite relaxed but when she found out she had won uttered an expletive in surprise.

"I had no idea that the fact that I had sworn was captured on camera until my family gleefully sent me the clip - so I was very embarrassed."

Hobbs said The Crown has an extraordinary level of resources which she initially found terrifying.

But she said it was a supportive and generous producing team.

"The best producers I've ever worked with to be honest, and perhaps it's because they have that scale of budget to support them and they assign a personal producer to each director, which is an unusual thing in television but it means you feel very supported right from pre-production until the end of your post."

Hobbs said prior to the show she was not a monarchist nor even a royal follower but that allowed her "to perhaps examine what the humanity was for them".

She said The Crown increased her respect for the breadth of the royal experience, particularly for the Queen.

"I have extraordinary respect for that woman and what she does and what she represents and her duty above all else to her country is something that I can't help but admire."

Members of the royal family can offer a lot as individuals, such as Prince Charles' environmental work, and they are doing a job by representing an institution which the public expects them to uphold, Hobbs said.

"There's a duality there, it's easy for us to get stuck into them and yet we still expect them to be there and be those representational figures."

Hobbs said the royal family is at a particularly challenging time right now, but they have also had challenges in the past which they have come through.

The Crown's changing cast

She said one of the things that was initially terrifying but which she now likes about The Crown is that every two years they change the cast.

"It allows you to jump time in a way that is sometimes harder when you're ageing actors ... you know there's a life lived in the energy of someone's body that's harder to portray just through ageing makeup."

Emma Corrin played Princess Diana in the fourth season of The Crown but she has been replaced by Elizabeth Debicki for its fifth season.

Hobbs said Corrin did a fantastic job playing Diana but it was when she was 24.

"And then when Diana needed to jump to someone who's going to travel another decade really and to become much more of a woman, someone who's been in a marriage for ten years, someone who had two children - you know Elizabeth Debicki has a different feel, a different level of maturity and energy to her."

Hobbs said Debicki "is a wonderfully complex and sensational Diana" who has less of an innocence than Corrin did when playing Diana.

Often it is the director's job to "get out of the way" and let the actor do "what's bubbling up inside them", Hobbs said.

She said an example was in the scene involving then prime minister Margaret Thatcher where she realises that if she stops fighting she does not know who she will be, if anything.

"I thought it was really important that the Queen didn't empathise with that, she views it as a job and when the job is over you walk away."

Hobbs said she was very moved by the way that actress Gillian Anderson pushed Thatcher through that scene.

London life

Hobbs said there's a necessary diversity that comes from living in a city the size of London and it can give you the freedom of anonymity.

She said one of the positive things that has come from the Covid-19 pandemic is that Londoners are now checking in on each other more often.

"There's a kind of connectivity born from the pandemic which I'm incredibly grateful for."

She said many restaurants now have tables outside which has traditionally been more common in New Zealand and Australia than London.

"And yes it's going to get colder, but just that idea of having more of an outdoor life has never been a very London thing and it's kind of exploded with this."

Hobbs said she and her family are very happy in London and she would like her teenage daughter to be able to finish her schooling there.

But she said she still misses New Zealand.

"It would be hard for me to put into words how much I miss New Zealand, how much I miss the people, how much I miss the land and the light."

Hobbs said that has become more profound knowing that they cannot return to New Zealand due to the pandemic.