Shortland Street, one of New Zealand’s long-running and favourite soap operas has featured famous faces. However, not a lot of people talk about the children and teenagers of Shortland Street, so I had a chat with Megg Alexander about her journey from school theatre productions to playing Cassie Lloyd on the show.
During her time at school as a child, Megg was involved with her school's productions. Since Megg first arrived on Shortland Street as Cassie, we get to see her role change from living in her mother's shadow, being the girlfriend of the late Wilder Mullens (played by Darby McKessar), and as one of the teens on the show, to being a full time mother of Knox and a recovering drug addict who now cares about her mental health. Megg's character, Cassie, has grown as a person throughout her time on the show. Her recovery from addiction, as well as being suicidal, brings a sense of clarity for everyone to learn about and acknowledge these issues in the real world. Through Megg's acting we can see how she really gets into the role of not only Cassie, but also her ability to portray a recovering addict.
Megg mentioned that her previous singing teacher, Jennifer Austin, helped her with filming the self tape audition before sending it to her agent. About two weeks after sending her self tape audition to her agent, Megg was sitting at home with her family when she got a call back from her agent. “That's when they said, they want you to play Cassie, I was like, are you sure? And so, my mother and I started screaming and my Dad was like, what's wrong? So, I said that I just got on the show!” Megg stated that even though the process is now much more familiar post-COVID, she's still pretty grateful that her previous singing teacher was able to guide her through the process.
Back in 2022, when Megg initially auditioned for the role of Cassie, she was given a little blurb explaining Cassie as a character and who Cassie would be involved with on the show. Megg went on to say, “I didn't really know what to make of Cassie at that point, I sort of thought that she was more reserved, which clearly she isn't now.”
“I sort of feel that initially when she was introduced, Cassie was more of a reserved person and was under a stricter parenting type of a vibe, so i wanted to explore that within her while also trying to see if there is another side of her character with that being brought out by her relationship with Wilder, getting to know Nicole;” who is played by Sally Martin, “and Maeve;” who is played by Jess Sayer, “getting to find out how people are different to what she was growing up with and what side of that was brought out of her which I think is what we're seeing more of now than before.”
“I was obviously terrified when I first got on set because I had never done any other acting jobs as it was my first proper real go at acting.” Megg explained. “I didn't feel so isolated and alone because there were around 5 or 6 of us teens on set at the time, so we did a little teens acting workshop on set one day and that was very fun.” Being almost 16 years old when Megg originally auditioned and landed the role of Cassie, she got to experience what it was like being on set at a young age.
When I talked to Megg, I asked her about her daily lifestyle outside of filming for Shortland Street as well as what she was fairly interested in. Megg enjoys morning workouts with her dad, a consistent part of her routine. Alongside that, Megg also mentioned that with Shortland Street not filming on the weekends, she also enjoys being at home with her family and her dog, and “just doing whatever”.
You can catch Megg online @yourstrulymegg on Instagram and @meggalexander on tiktok.