Antonia Prebble

Early life and education

Born on 6 June 1984 in Wellington, New Zealand, Antonia Mary Prebble is the middle of three children of John Prebble, a Sussex-born barrister and solicitor and a law professor at Victoria University of Wellington, and Nicola Mary Riddiford, an English teacher; Prebble has an older sister, Becky, and a younger brother, Ben, both of whom studied law. Her uncle Richard Prebble is a former politician. Another uncle, Mark Prebble, is the former head of the State Services Commission.

Prebble attended Queen Margaret College between 1999 and 2001 and was Prefect in charge of Arts and Proxime Accessit in her final year. She then matriculated to Victoria University of Wellington, where she studied a Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics. Initially, Prebble had been studying for a Bachelor of Laws before she switched programs.

Prebble can speak French.

Career

She became interested in acting at an early age, starring in the stage play The Magical Kingdom of Thingymijig in 1993. Throughout the late 1990s Antonia started to work a lot with New Zealand children's TV production companies, having starring and guest roles in several programmes. Two of her larger roles include that of Mandy McFarlane in the second season of Mirror, Mirror in 1997, and as Trudy in five series' of The Tribe from 1999 to 2003. She has also guest starred in two episodes of Power Rangers: Dino Thunder as Krista, alongside two of her fellow cast members from The Tribe. In 2006, she began her role in Power Rangers: Mystic Force as Clare Langtree, the Gatekeeper and Udonna's apprentice.

Prebble made a cameo appearance in the band Flip Grater's music video for "Careful". She is also a television presenter, having hosted New Zealand's WNTV (What Now Television) from 2002 to 2003.

In 2005, she won a place in the main cast of the new New Zealand comedy-drama Outrageous Fortune, where she played 15-year-old movie buff Loretta West. In February 2010, filming wrapped for the sixth and final series of Outrageous Fortune. At the end of the fifth series, Loretta had married Hayden Peters (played by Shane Cortese), her partner and the father of her child. By the end of the series, Loretta West had become a smart and successful business entrepreneur and a madame of a brothel. The final episode of the series aired 9 November 2010.

Prebble had a cameo role in the TVNZ series The Almighty Johnsons as a red-herring for the identity of the Norse goddess, Frigg in the show's first season in 2011. The real 'Frigg' was eventually played by her former Outrageous Fortune co-star Siobhan Marshall, who had played her on-screen sister, Pascalle.

Prebble and Marshall teamed up again in 2013 for the mystery thriller, The Blue Rose.

In 2015 she had the lead role of Rita West in Westside, a prequel to Outrageous Fortune, about Ted and Rita West in the 1970s.

Antonia has given birth on screen five times, starting with The Tribe as a fourteen-year old, then Outrageous Fortune, a short film, White Lies, and a play as Mary mother of Jesus (who just popped out .... and we all sang a song).

Crew