It’s not just coffee that drove McTavish to settle here all those years ago. Ease, safety, space to breathe, great film crews – the list of what the Scotsman loves about our slice of paradise goes on and on.
“The lifestyle here is great, first of all. We just felt that it was a better place to bring our children up than going back to Los Angeles, and I think that was a very, very good decision,” he says.
McTavish shares his children with his former partner, Kiwi filmmaker Gwen Isaac. He married French fashion writer Garance Doré in 2023.
“[The kids have] really thrived here. My eldest is now over in the UK at university, but my youngest is still here at school, and it’s a great place to grow up. It reminds me very much of what life was like for me when I was growing up in the UK a long time ago.”
McTavish was born in Glasgow, but grew up as a global citizen, living in Canada, the US and England, where he went to university and started acting on the stage.
His early career featured spots on the likes of TV series Highlander and Heartbeat, and a raft of voice work on video games. In 2012, he starred as Dwalin in The Hobbit and two years later, he scored the part of Dougal MacKenzie in the hit historic romance series, Outlander. Newer fans will recognise him from TV’s Preacher and The Witcher.
For a very busy actor like McTavish, who often plays physically taxing historical and fantasy roles, like in the new Spartacus reboot House of Ashur (“We were like little killing machines by the end of it… and had to be very cardio fit”) it’s no wonder he loves the laid-back Kiwi way of life.
“The [filmmakers] all love doing boot camps. The Hobbit did a boot camp, Outlander did a boot camp, Preacher did a boot camp. We did a boot camp for this – and this was the hardest.”
House of Ashur co-star Jordi Webber agreed, admitting to Ryan Bridge on Herald Now that he “copped a couple” of blows from wooden swords while on-set, with stunt work being a major part of the show.
When McTavish is not working, “gladiator training,” or writing his latest novel (Clanlands: Whisky, Warfare, and a Scottish Adventure Like No Other, written with Outlander co-star Sam Heughan topped the New York Times’ best seller’s list in 2020), he and younger daughter Hope, 13, are well into their Lego builds.
The keen outdoorsman is also partial to a good bush walk; an added bonus of joining one of his daughter’s school camps last year.
“Those sorts of things help me relax. Where I am at the moment, I can be in the bush in five minutes, and that’s a great calming thing for me.”
He’s currently filming for the feature film reboot of Kiwi TV treasure A Dog’s Show alongside Theresa Healey (Shortland Street, Filthy Rich), Aussie actor David Wenham (The Lord of the Rings, Lion) and Kiwi newcomer Unaiki Stephens-Jones.
He says the experience has made him reflect on how good we really have it here.
“I’m obviously hanging out with a lot of farmers, and it has really given me a greater appreciation of the life that New Zealanders have built for themselves here. It’s an outdoor life. I’m in Wellington, but within minutes you can be on the beach, you can be in the countryside, you can be on a hike. And that’s fantastic.
“I think New Zealanders sometimes take it for granted. They don’t realise how lucky they are to have that on their doorstep.”
Unlike America, New Zealand also lacks a huge number of animals that can kill or severely injure. Naturally, McTavish sees this as a positive.
“It sounds like a stupid thing to say, but I was filming in Atlanta just before I was filming here. There we were, filming in the woods, and we had to avoid deadly copperhead snakes. We had to avoid brown recluse spiders that could kill you. There were moose, there were all sorts of things. Whereas here, the only thing you hear are birds.”
Spartacus: House of Ashur, where McTavish plays gladiator trainer Korris, was filmed in New Zealand just like the other instalments in the brutal Ancient Roman action series.
The experience reminded him, once again, that Kiwi film crews are a “very special” bunch.
“Something very, very, core to the New Zealand character is that they are very co-operative, and they’re very helpful to each other. Nothing’s too much trouble, people don’t complain, it’s a real can-do mentality and I think it makes for a very happy work environment,” McTavish notes.
“They’re also very, very good at their jobs, and they’re very adaptable.”
Take Dion, for example, a man who worked with McTavish on The Hobbit, and worked with him again yesterday, on the set of A Dog’s Show.
“He builds his own camera rigs. He’s just built this incredible camera rig that goes over almost any terrain, and he’s just built it himself. He built an underwater rig for The Hobbit… himself, like in his garage. That’s Kiwis all over, they don’t rely on other people to solve their problems.”
I tell him that we call this a “number 8 wire mentality”. He laughs, as we delve into the concept of Kiwi-isms, and if he’s picked any up over his 14 years living here.
“I’m always a bit hesitant to do that kind of thing, because I always worry that I’ll just look like some kind of sad fake guy, you know? I’m very stuck in my ways in lots of ways,” he says, still with his trademark Scottish accent.
“But my children might say differently – and my wife might say differently.”
Having travelled up and down the motu, McTavish says it’s hard to pick his favourite spot. But the on-screen hardman does recall one experience that left him rather shaken – the infamous Nevis Swing, near Queenstown.
“It was absolutely terrifying. And I was lied to consistently. They said that I wouldn’t go upside down and all this sort of thing. Just lies. All I saw were my feet as I was plummeting to almost certain death,” he laughs.
“But, you know, there’s really no place in New Zealand that I love more than any other, and that’s an honest answer. I think you’re very, very lucky here.”
And as he heads off to get his fabled coffee, claiming he still drinks too much of it, I ask him if he still gets a good caffeine fix on local film sets.
“Crews would just walk off the set if the coffee wasn’t good,” he laughs.
Spartacus: House of Ashur is streaming now on ThreeNow.
Mitchell Hageman joined the Herald’s entertainment and lifestyle team in 2024. He previously worked as a multimedia journalist for Hawke’s Bay Today.
