Chelsea Winstanley: Overcoming trauma and coming out on top

Oscar-nominated film producer Chelsea Winstanley talks to Anika about overcoming trauma, taking risks, and coming out on top.

The first guest on Anika Moa's new podcast, It's Personal with Anika Moa, is the oscar-nominated producer Chelsea Winstanley.

Watch the video version of the episode here

Chelsea's rise to the top has been littered with potholes - childhood abuse, a life-shattering car accident and a high-profile marriage breakdown. But she proves Anika's theory that the most interesting and inspiring people have often been broken and had to rebuild.

On translating Disney movies

"Why not? I think if we want to make an impact or a change with our language in this country, we need to go to and work with the biggest global giant in the entertainment industry.

"One night we were having dinner and we just got out those chalk pen things and wrote on the windows. We were like, what kind of contribution could we make towards te reo Māori for our kids, for our mokopuna, for our babies, and in the future and what do we do in our lives daily that we could enhance that? So, okay, we work in this industry, what would it look like if we just took product in our sphere, in what we do and put that into te reo Māori and put that into public spaces.

On making it happen

"At the time, Taika was editing Thor so he's on the Disney lot. I said to him, give me the person who can make a connection with Disney. He didn't really have anyone we could specifically talk to, but gave us, like, the intern of someone else. She was a young Hawaiian woman, she put us on to one of the producers, who then put us onto the guy in charge of international voices."

"So I get on a plane and go to LA, because we decided to move over there at that point, take the kids. And so I walk into the Disney studio lot, thinking it was probably going to be me, Rick, and one other. It's like a whole big boardroom table with about ten people. And then just basically winged it. They were like, 'oh, this sounds great'."

On chasing her dreams while solo parenting

"It's a humiliating space to be in, the DPB. You feel heaps of whakama/shame that you're taking taxpayers money so you can feed your kid. And that's not a good space to be in. It's not the right motivation for you to want to go back and study, for you to feel shame. It should be more like, oh, I want to further my education and it was, I wanted to build a life for my son, I suppose."…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details