Source: Radio New Zealand
Holly Shervey is the creator, writer and star of Crackhead. Matt Klitscher
Warning: This story covers topics including sex addiction and suicide.
New Kiwi dark comedy Crackhead turns real-life addiction struggles into sharp humour – with Holly Shervey starring and husband Emmett Skilton directing.
Holly Shervey was just six-years-old when her mum died of cancer.
She was her everything, and once she was gone, Shervey began drifting down a destructive path of anxiety – including fears that murderers were lurking outside her bedroom – before an eating disorder, addiction and suicidal thoughts took hold, eventually leading to psychiatric care while she was still at university.
It’s an experience that would break many, but the New Zealand actress has turned that deep pain into a gripping dark comedy, Crackhead, which has just premiered on Kiwi and international screens.
“When I went into psych care, I couldn’t find someone or something to connect my journey with, except Girl Interrupted [an Oscar-winning movie, starring Angelina Jolie],” Shervey tells The Detail.
“It was the only way I could see what was going on for me and someone else going through the same struggle, and it made me feel less alone.
“So, my hope is that anyone who is going through something similar can feel less isolated in their own struggle. Yes, it’s dark, but we have tried to match it with enough comedy so it’s digestible for a wider audience as well.”
A familiar face to Kiwi audiences, thanks to roles on Shortland Street, Auckward Love, and Head High, Shervey moved to New Zealand from Australia with her parents and siblings when she was young. But not long after, tragedy struck when her mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
“You lose that stability at that age … and I created these anxieties as a kid. I would have been about 7-years-old, and every night before I went to sleep, I would have to check around the outside of our house to make sure there weren’t murderers hiding.
“You are in survival mode as a kid because you don’t have your mum to look after you.”
A still from the series Crackhead, which has just premiered on Kiwi and international screens. Matt Klitscher
As she got older, she turned to food, alcohol, and sex to numb her pain, and “things sort of just spiralled from there”. More than once, she contemplated suicide.
“You are trying so hard to feel normal, but your thoughts are so jagged, part of me was so desperate to not have those thoughts, that spiralling going on for me anymore, and so part of me reached out for help.”
She connected with her family, who organised psychiatric care. It proved lifesaving and life-changing.
And the experience ultimately formed the basis of her plot for her dark comedy, Crackhead.
Shervey wanted to turn her pain into gritty humour, so she created Frankie, a hard-partying, drug-taking, sex-loving, self-destructive 30-something who ends up in rehab.
A hint of her behaviour: in the opening scene, viewers meet her drunk dancing in a nightclub before she hooks up with a stranger in a bathroom cubicle, then vomits in the toilet while insisting her new male friend continues the sex act.
It’s confronting, raw, and gripping, all at once.
Before the end of the first 22 minutes, a hungover Frankie misses her father’s funeral, has a drunken car accident, and burns down part of her sister’s home before landing in court-appointed rehab, where she battles a colourful cast of patients and staff – played by the likes of Miriama Smith, Ana Scotney, and Sara Wiseman.
An in-your-face, did-that-really-make-it-on New Zealand TV “emergency defecation situation” makes it into the next 22 minutes, but it’s probably best that it’s left here.
All up there are eight episodes, which took Shervey and her husband, actor and director Emmett Skilton, eight years to bring to the screen.
For Shervey, bringing Frankie to life was, at times, “so much fun – the parties and drinking”, but other scenes proved “heartbreaking”.
“Playing Frankie felt real, but we definitely have different vices. She’s more of an addict than I was. I struggled more with an eating disorder and suicidal ideation, so there are similarities, but mental health is different,” says Shervey, who never contemplated anyone else playing the role.
“I think if someone else had played her, it would have broken my heart, because that was like my soul on that paper, and it was too hard for me to think of someone else having that voice.
“And the journey of Crackhead has been hugely cathartic.”
Her husband Emmett Skilton, in his role as the show director, admits it was heartbreaking to watch his wife relive her trauma, but he gained a full understanding of what she had been through years earlier.
“When we met, I fell in love with her very quickly and asked her to marry me very quickly. Her first instinct was to make sure that I was aware that she was in psych care.
“So, that being introduced into our relationship in a major way, cut to a decade later, and we are making Crackhead, it was almost like I was starting to understand what all that meant to her, and what all that was.
“So, the scenes that we explored that were the hardest hitting were the ones that were very very close to home in regard to close to the real events that occurred.
“Watching Holly re-live those things, and it was very painful for her, and watching it and guiding her as a director, but also supporting her as a husband, was quite relieving that it was me doing it.”
Shervey fought hard for her story to make it to air – “initially networks weren’t into it, it was too much of a risk” – and then to keep control of the narrative and the title.
“It’s such a powerful name… but there were people who weren’t willing to advertise the show because it’s such a bold name,” she says. “And there were definitely moments when we explored trying to have another title for the show. But nothing felt right.
“Crackhead matches the energy of what the show is. And it’s a crunchy, visceral word, and it’s a crunchy visceral show.”
The show is now airing on Three on Thursday night, plus on demand, and is already reaching international audiences through HBO Max Australia.
“With international audiences, we have had a few people who have already seen it and have nothing to compare it to,” says Skilton, who initially considered acting in the show before committing to director-only. “They said we haven’t seen something like this yet. We even have New Zealand audiences saying that.
“I think the importance of it is that it’s true and honest. You go to some very very dark places, and I think especially New Zealand audiences find those things more digestible when you are laughing at the same time. Or when they have just laughed, two or three seconds previous, you shock them with something very truthful and deep.”
Because sometimes humour is the only way people survive the hardest chapters of their lives. And sometimes telling the truth – even the ugly parts – is the bravest thing a storyteller can do.
Crackhead isn’t polished. It isn’t polite. But that may be exactly the point.
Where to get help:
- Need to Talk? Free call or text 1737 any time to speak to a trained counsellor, for any reason
- Lifeline: 0800 543 354 or text HELP to 4357
- Suicide Crisis Helpline: 0508 828 865 / 0508 TAUTOKO. This is a service for people who may be thinking about suicide, or those who are concerned about family or friends
- Depression Helpline: 0800 111 757 or text 4202
- Samaritans: 0800 726 666
- Youthline: 0800 376 633 or text 234 or email talk@youthline.co.nz
- What’s Up: 0800 WHATSUP / 0800 9428 787. This is free counselling for 5 to 19-year-olds
- Asian Family Services: 0800 862 342 or text 832. Languages spoken: Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, Japanese, Hindi, and English.
- Rural Support Trust Helpline: 0800 787 254
- Healthline: 0800 611 116
- Rainbow Youth: (09) 376 4155
- OUTLine: 0800 688 5463
- Aoake te Rā bereaved by suicide service: or call 0800 000 053
If it is an emergency and you feel like you or someone else is at risk, call 111.
Sexual Violence
Check out how to listen to and follow The Detail here.
You can also stay up-to-date by liking us on Facebook or following us on Twitter.
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand