Alison Bruce

Alison Bruce is a New Zealand actress of television and film who trained in Auckland at Theatre Corporate during the early 1980s and began on stage, playing Ophelia in Hamlet and Roxane in Cyrano de Bergerac. Born in Tanzania, she moved to New Zealand as a child. Her screen debut came in the 1984 teleplay The Minders, and she has since taken more than 30 screen roles, including the chase comedy User Friendly (1990) and the 2001 comedy-drama Magik and Rose, in which she played a fortune-teller searching for the daughter she gave up, a part she called a turning point. She played a doctor in The World's Fastest Indian (2005) and appeared in the short Mon Desir, shown at Cannes in 1992. On television she is known for Being Eve, Mercy Peak, which brought her two New Zealand awards for best supporting actor, and Young Hercules, and appeared in The Almighty Johnsons and Top of the Lake.