Jacinda Ardern’s Fiancé Cameos In ‘Wellington Paranormal’ S2, Which Is Extremely NZ

Wellington Paranormal S2

Spoooooooky mockumentary Wellington Paranormal finally returns to Aussie screens tonight for its second season. And while I’ve tried my hardest to resist the spoilers on Twitter, I’ve copped one big unavoidable one. I’m talking about Clarke Gayford‘s cameo – New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern‘s fiancé.

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The series is a spinoff of Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement‘s delightful film What We Do In The Shadows. It follows Police Officers Minogue and O’Leary (Karen O’Leary) as they join the Paranormal Unit, investigating the very supernatural events plaguing the public.

Officer Minogue, Mike Minogue, tells PEDESTRIAN.TV over the phone that he faced a couple of new ghouls in season 2, including some witches, clones, and a haunted car which Minogue later describes as [checks notes] “a car that has been haunted by a bogan”. Incredible.

Minogue isn’t a believer in the paranormal himself, in case you were wondering. Well, he hasn’t had any experiences… yet.

“But at the same time I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of any potential supernatural event,” he says.

Like What We Do In The Shadows, Wellington Paranormal is pretty much improv.

“First we get the script, you get notes, then by the third take we’re told to do whatever we like,” he explains.

Every take is different, “1000%”.

“It is, it really is, and I really do hope they come out with a DVD of extended scenes and alternative takes because what you end up with is often just a few minutes of what we actually did.”

Like when Clarke Gayford was strapped to a [REDACTED] and covered in [REDACTED] for hours. You’ll see.

“He was a bloody good sport,” Minogue laughs. “The shoot took so long and he never complained and it was cold and it looked really uncomfortable but he never complained once.”

TV host Gayford kicked off his career on New Zealand’s version of Channel [V], Minogue explains. He was like Osher, pre Bachelor hosting gig, when Osher was known as Andrew Günsberg.

“So that’s how he started. It wasn’t me that called him but one of the guys we work with knows him so he rang him up and asked him and he was like, ‘Yeah, sweet’.”

And that was that.

Cameo aside, Minogue says fans can also expect a Christmas special this year that – fingers crossed – will air in Australia at some point.

“It’s sort of like a little anthology of stories,” he says, complete with a possessed doll and Santa. Yay!

“We’ve got another season coming up as well,” he adds. “So we’re going to start shooting that in the first half of next year.”

Hell yes.

Wellington Paranormal season 2 kicks off tonight 9.25pm on SBS VICELAND. You can also stream / re-binge all of season 1 on SBS On Demand right here.

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