Words by Sjaan Askwith | Photography by Guy Coombes | Styling by Claire Sullivan-Kraus | Creative Direction by Anna Saveleva | Videography by Mason Bennett | Shot on location at Rahimoana, Eagles Nest, Bay of Islands
From an idyllic childhood on an apple orchard in Nelson to starring in one of the year’s biggest blockbuster films — Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Lydia Peckham’s rise in Hollywood has been a journey. Yet the inimitable actress is undoubtedly on the path to superstardom. Her most recent role in Nuremberg — a war thriller set for release in 2025 within which Peckham stars alongside Russell Crowe, Rami Malek and Richard E. Grant, further solidifies her standing in Hollywood, and is a sure insight into her destiny.
Lydia Peckham, I quickly come to learn, is a natural-born actress. Originally from Edinburgh (her dulcet accent remains, despite having left Scotland as a child), Peckham and her family spent a handful of years in a remote Scottish village before relocating to Nelson — her parents having fallen in love with New Zealand during a campervan trip. Peckham’s upbringing was one that, she says, set her up for success in the career she would eventually go on to pursue, but not in a traditional sense. “I think that growing up in nature, both in Scotland and New Zealand, instilled in me a real sense of adventure. It’s where my imagination comes from, and where I developed a real curiosity about the world.” During those early, formative years in small-town Scotland, Peckham talks of a childhood spent barefoot and free, with her and her two siblings (one brother, one sister) spending much of their time exploring the surrounding forests, dreaming up whimsical stories, and tapping into their imaginations for entertainment, “Growing up, I spent so long — countless hours, delving into dreamt up characters to pass the time.”
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With Peckham’s parents homeschooling, the family was afforded both freedom and flexibility, with an emphasis placed on education through exploration. Given both her mother and father were in environmental studies, nature became her alma mater — and it’s something that remains as fundamental to her life today as it was then, “I grew up in nature, and I’ve always felt pulled towards it. I don’t think that part of me will ever change.”
“Growing up, I spent so long — countless hours, delving into dreamt up characters to pass the time.”
Peckham’s parents moved the family to sunny Nelson in the halcyon days of the early noughties, purchasing an apple orchard and beginning to dabble in cider production. It was then that Peckham and her siblings stepped into institutionalised schooling, and where she first discovered her love of performance.
She talks of naturally picking up drama as a subject once she reached high school and beginning to dedicate more and more time to what, as she puts it, lit her inner fire. “[Acting] was never something my parents pushed on me,” the actress makes clear, “It’s just what made me happy.” Peckham got involved with the SGCNZ University of Otago Sheila Winn Shakespeare Festival, where she began to perform on stage and build a profile. And, while Peckham’s performances at The Globe were the catalyst for her momentum, it was after school when she got into the country’s preeminent acting school, Toi Whakaari, that she realised, perhaps for the first time, that she might really be able to make something of herself in an industry notoriously difficult to find success in.
Peckham found confidence in a mentor, Vaughan Slinn, who acknowledged her talent and gave her the impetus to put herself out there. “You’re so insecure as an actor,” she admits, “A lot of us have an inner ambitious voice, but there are moments — and people, that help you to own that.” Slinn was one such person for Peckham, “He just believed in me,” she gratefully recalls, saying that sometimes you just need someone else to validate your instincts.
“The one thing I’ve learned how to do is create a meaningful, fulfilling life and identity outside of acting.”
And it was here, at acting school, that Peckham honed her craft — connecting more deeply to the innate parts of herself she always knew existed but didn’t necessarily have the language to describe. “I’ve always been drawn to movement as a means of communication,” she muses, “and at Toi, I was able to rationalise and give life to what I’d always been driven by.” It’s little wonder, then, that her biggest break thus far — the blockbuster film Kingdom of The Planet of The Apes, saw her playing a role based almost entirely on the mastery of movement. “For my Apes audition, I was back in Nelson with family, as my dad had just passed away,” Peckham reflects, “I didn’t want to ask for anyone’s help, and I knew I couldn’t do the audition in front of a white wall, so I took my camera and a bungee cord and climbed up the tallest tree in our orchard.” She continues, “And I just did the audition in the tree. The birds were chirping, the sun was filtering through the leaves casting these incredible shadows, and everything just happened at the perfect time for the dialogue — it was such a beautiful take.” Peckham recounts with relish, recalling the moment that essentially changed her life.
In Kingdom of The Planet of The Apes, Peckham’s character, Soona, is a kind, playful, and wise ape (qualities that could just as quickly be used to describe the actress herself), who belongs to the spiritually-led Eagle clan. In preparation for the role, Peckham and her fellow actors were put into ‘Ape School’ — an intensive, six-week training where they were guided to release their inhibitions and tap into their primal instincts, “There’s this dungeon-like space under Fox Studios where we spent weeks learning to (ironically) move out of our ‘monkey minds’ and embody the essence of an ape,” Peckham recounts, “I would be put in a mirrored room, with my fellow actors, and for four straight hours we’d have to just be apes. You’d be shocked at what happens when your inhibitions go out the window.”
And while the overarching premise of the film is centred on a young chimpanzee’s journey to determine the future for apes and humans, as with all of the films within the enduring franchise, the beauty lies in the less overt, arguably more relevant and realistic themes that speak so beautifully to humanity. From our relationship with nature to the complexities of information sharing to power, oppression, and empathy. Given how thoughtful and observant Peckham seems, I’m interested to know whether any of the film’s themes struck a particular chord with her. Unsurprisingly, nature claiming back its power is the first that comes to mind, “It’s a really interesting take on the fact that, at the end of the day, we all live within the boundaries of nature — there is no greater force.”
Peckham reflects on filming coming to an end, telling me that the highs and lows are immense, “The one thing I’ve learned how to do is create a meaningful, fulfilling life and identity outside of acting,” pragmatically stating that the roles might not keep coming forever, and that, if the work does dry up, she feels that having a full life outside of acting puts the power back with her.
As such, Peckham’s life is split between the “tangible” day-to-day (as she describes it) of life in quiet Kerikeri and the intangible, wild world of Hollywood acting. And her life outside of work seems very full indeed. Peckham and her long-term partner have recently begun building a family home on an 8000 sqm plot of native bush in Kerikeri, “Tapping out and zooming into the micro things is something that makes what I do feel sustainable.” Peckham tells me, saying that she finds purpose at home in gardening, cooking, hiking, and volunteering as a diversional therapist at a retirement home, entertaining the local elderly community — a far cry from glitzy premières and fast-paced, fantastical, high-octane days on set. I’m curious as to how she switches between the two disparate facets of her life so seamlessly and navigates the discombobulation I imagine comes with frequently shifting places and lifestyles, “You go from these huge, energetic, soul-filling moments on set to this kind of nothingness, so you need to make your life at home just as soul-filling, just in different ways.” She tells me, “It also helps that my partner’s job means he can be relatively nomadic, travelling with me wherever my roles take me. He’s become my constant, making the transition from set to home much easier.”
And despite being on these incredible sets and filming alongside some of the world’s greatest actors and directors, Peckham explains that, for her, the highlight will always be the people she has the privilege of working alongside, “I’m yet to come across an asshole in this business,” she states with candour, “Everyone I’ve worked with so far has been wonderful. And while I don’t doubt that the rumours are true and there are some horrible people in Hollywood, I’ve only ever found the opposite,” she laughs. “These are my people,” she tells me, before explaining that the toughest part of the job is saying goodbye to her newfound family upon wrapping a piece of work.
When we speak, Peckham has recently wrapped filming on Nuremberg — a political thriller set against the backdrop of post-war Germany, which chronicles the eponymous trials held by the Allies against the defeated Nazi regime. In the film, Peckham plays Lila, a young journalist covering the Nuremberg trials. The role, Peckham tells me, was a marked departure from Apes, “Nuremberg was a totally different experience. Where Apes was very physical and technical, this film was academic and dialogue-heavy, and filming was fast-paced,” she recalls, adding that Rami Malek was amazing to work alongside, “He was such an incredible scene partner and so connected to the work.” For Peckham, Nuremberg feels like the first time people will really see her in her essence — a fact that both excites and terrifies her.
We begin to discuss what the future looks like, and when she mentions that one day she’d love to make something that embodies the spirit of Alice in Wonderland, I hide a smile, recalling that, just half an hour earlier, as Peckham told the tale of her upbringing, I’d sat picturing her as a modern-day Alice. When I tell her this, she’s thrilled, saying that for her, Alice enlivens the sense of wonder and playfulness that her late father instilled in her at a young age. “Dad was wild, wacky, off-beat,” she fondly remembers (it’s only been two short years since his passing), telling me that he challenged her to follow life’s impulses, saying that it doesn’t matter if the decisions you make are right or wrong, because you’re never going to get anywhere by staying stationary. “Dad showed me that life is so wonderful and wild and playful, and that, if you can find a way to tap into the magic of all of that, you’ll have an exhilarating ride,” adding that, for her, Alice in Wonderland has always captured that so beautifully. When I ask whether there’s a particular quote from the story that feels meaningful to her, Peckham tells me there are many, and bubbles over as she lists them off to me, but the one that lands the strongest is, “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” Not only perfectly capturing her work, but embodying Peckham’s character wholly.
And, just as Alice falls down the rabbit hole and lands in a fantastical land of whimsy and wonder, Peckham has landed in a magical world of her own, making her way from small-town New Zealand to starring in blockbuster films alongside a slew of Hollywood heavyweights — something the humble actress will never take for granted. “My whole life feels like a pinch me moment,” she tells me, recalling a recent 48-hour period where she found herself jetting off from the Nuremberg set to LA for the Kingdom of The Planet of The Apes première, then back to set the next day, saying that the pace is so incredibly addictive. After recounting the experience, Peckham expresses guilt over the frequency at which she has to travel for work. Given her platform (or, I get the impression, even without one), she feels a sense of responsibility to do what she can — both environmentally and politically.
“Dad showed me that life is wonderful and wild and playful… if you can tap into the magic of that, you’ll have an exhilarating ride.”
We discuss the pressure, as a public figure, to be political on social media, and the actress states that she thinks there’s real bravery in that, but for her, she has her own version of what feels right, which doesn’t include the need to broadcast her actions.
On social media as a whole, she’s ambivalent, “I think it can be an incredible platform, and now, with acting, it somewhat comes with the territory,” she tells me. But we agree that it can be both a blessing and a curse. And, when I think about it, I’m surprised she has social media at all (the actress notes, during our conversation, that [co-stars] Rami Malek and Russell Crowe have both so far swerved it).
The topsoil posturing of social media feels like the antithesis of Peckham and her wholesome life in small-town New Zealand. But, one look at her channel might tell you the opposite (as Instagram often does) — her posts are peppered with glitzy premières and filming highlights, dinners with Leo Woodall, and football games with Colin Hanks, but scroll back a little further, and there she is — the Lydia I see so plainly. The one who, up until recently, spent three years living in a van, traversing the country until the next job came up.
While we’re on the topic of politics, we discuss the dichotomy that working women grapple with. Peckham doesn’t yet have kids but would one day love to be a mother, and at just 28, she’s already questioning how she’d juggle acting and motherhood. Luckily, she tells me, given the freedom her partner has in his work, she’d have his full support when filming 12-plus-hour days, for months on end, across the globe. But there’s time to figure all that out.
For now, Peckham is eagerly awaiting the release of Nuremberg and is focused on building her home in Kerikeri. In a work capacity, what comes immediately next is still up for debate, but long-term, the actress dreams of bringing together a host of creative talent that perhaps haven’t yet been given their big break and showing the world what they’re made of, “I know so many incredible creatives that, for one reason or another, haven’t been given a shot — and I’d love to somehow get into a position to bring those artists together to create something incredible.”
On a personal note, Peckham is keen to explore roles that more closely speak to her innate sense of self, “Those off-beat worlds are where I would love to play in more,” she tells me, stating that she’s always been drawn to clowning and comedy and would love to see what she can do in that space. And, given the name on both the acting and directing credits and hype-to-date, I think that after Nuremberg’s release, Peckham won’t have a shortage of offers rolling in.
But, as I’ve come to learn of the genuine, grounded, and quintessentially Kiwi actress in the time we’ve spent together, whatever comes her way will be tackled with passion, pride, and a playfulness that will continue to set her apart.
Hair & Makeup: Kiekie Stanners. Photographer assistant: Josh White. Retouch Artist: Annalee Hart. Videographer assistant: Rachel Moyle.
