Morgana O'Reilly's... Not So Mean Mum!

These Two Happily Share the Spotlight

- Amy Prebble

It’s unsurprising that stunning actress Morgana O’Reilly has always felt comfortable in the limelight. Thanks to her mum, celebrated choreographer Mary-Jane, she spent vast amounts of her childhood in dance studios and theatres.

By the tender age of eight, she had already made her television debut – on local soap Shortland Street. “I was a tap-dancing Christmas elf. It was the best day ever!” she laughs.

“I was just thrilled that she wanted to be an actress rather than a dancer,” Mary-Jane admits. “I often thought I might have ended up going in that direction. But a full-time ballet school started in Wellington just as I left school and I got a scholarship to go there, so a dance career fell into place.”

Mary-Jane found fame as a dancer and choreographer for Limbs, a contemporary dance company that wowed Kiwi audiences from 1977 to 1989. But her choreography took a backseat for a while after Morgana was born. “People said I could run a company and have a baby at the same time,” says Mary-Jane. “Well, of course I couldn’t! I was not at all interested in the dancers. Sorry, dancers, but I had a baby who was much more interesting!”