The Ridge star Jay Ryan on making the new Scots/Kiwi psychological thriller with Outlander star Lauren Lyle

Screening on BBC, Sky Open and NEON, The Ridge was shot on location between New Zealand and Scotland, and directed by BAFTA-winning Scottish director Douglas Mackinnon (Good Omens, Line of Duty, Doctor Who) and Emmy-nominated New Zealand director Robyn Grace (Sweet Tooth, Power Rangers, Spartacus).

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Born and raised in Auckland, 44-year old Ryan cut his acting teeth on teen drama and as Jack Scully in the long-running hit soap Neighbours (2002–2005) before leaving to perform a one-man sell-out show written by his now wife, New Zealand/Niuean writer, director and performer Dianna Fuemana at the 2004 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. This went on to tour in New Zealand, Australia and Los Angeles and led to a variety of roles, such as Beauty and the Beast (2012–2016), Jane Campion’s Top of the Lake (2013) with Peter Mullan, Mary Kills People (2017–2019) , It Chapter Two (2019) with James McAvoy, Outback neo-Westery Territory (2025) and Netflix comedy North of North (2025). After 15 years in Canada, he returned to live in New Zealand with his wife and their daughter for The Ridge.

The series starts with Mia (Lyle) heading to her sister’s wedding in New Zealand, escaping addiction and a disciplinary at work, and arriving to find her lying dead at the bottom of a ridge. In trying to find out how she died she becomes involved with her sister’s fiance, played by Ryan, and a small community full of secrets and tension. Is anyone to be trusted?

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What can you tell us about The Ridge? Why should people tune in?

Well, firstly it's rare for our nations to make a television show together. I think when we pool our resources and talents - and we have very similar backgrounds and histories and crossover - that's an exciting thing.

And I think the Scottish audience will really enjoy watching a young Scotswoman be a fish out of water in the almost Gothic place the show's set in. There's a real sense of horror deep within the dark forests of New Zealand. There's this unknown folklore of what's out there so we really play on those tropes and I think we've got a really exciting storyline.

Could you explain some of the similarities between Kiwis and Scots?

We both like to get our hands dirty, get stuck in and do a good job. There was a really great energy on set and Lauren as our lead, really brought that kind of energy. I've noticed it in a lot of Scottish actors, a real no complaints, get stuck in, do the best job and I think Kiwis are the same.

We like to have a good laugh as well. There's a similar humor between the Scots and Kiwis. And a great majority of people here have some kind of Scottish ancestry or lineage so we love to hear the accent. A lot of our heritage comes from Ireland, England, Scotland but we don't really know the true connections. So for me doing this show was interesting to dive into my Scottish roots and talk to Lauren about it.

My character Ewan is born to a very traditional expat Scottish family but Ewan is a bit lost. He doesn't quite feel Kiwi enough or accepted by the locals and doesn't quite feel Scots enough or accepted by his own lineage. I think we have a lot of lost souls like that in New Zealand, new generational Kiwis and trying to find the balance of who we are.

How did you get into the character of Ewan?

I often start with collaborating on a look with a makeup artist and the costume team. Once you get what the person wears it informs those nitty gritty things about individual humans and their habits. And I use nuggets in the script.

But for Ewan I delved into my Scottish ancestry. I pestered my mother about who we were and where we came from and who were the Scots that came over. And then growing up my nana - her mother was Scottish, my great grandmother - so she had trinkets and treasures all over the house. Scots bowls and kilts and little trinkets and things from Edinburgh. So I went about finding those again because they’ve been stuck away in boxes, and I put a lot in the home we used for the set for the show.

Then it was just trying to find him throughout filming with Lauren and Douglas, our director, because he's not a good guy, he's not a bad guy, he’s someone that walks between the two. He perhaps uses his privilege in not the best ways.

The Ridge is a psychological thriller. How did that translate into the way it's filmed?

That was interesting. Douglas did Line of Duty and wanted to do this very sharp fly-on-the wall camera angle, almost like you're being watched by an erratic being in the room. It's almost like in Succession, how they zoom in then out and you can kind of feel the camera work. Using that helped with the tension but also meant that in a scene you had to always be on because even if the camera wasn't on you, you never knew if it was gonna flip to you. So it was a great way to keep everybody in.


And we were really lucky to not film in a studio. Everything you see is an actual location somewhere in New Zealand. There are a lot of derelict mansions that the council now own, so people get to film there sometimes. So a sense of history is already there in these properties and helps to build the tension.

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What was it like working with Lauren Lyle?

Really good. Her series Karen Pirie had just premiered in New Zealand and was a very big hit here. So when it was announced I was very excited. Then when I met Lauren she has a deep connection to New Zealand, which I didn't know, because she lived here for part of her schooling years and knew more about some of the places where we were filming than I did. So that was really nice and kind of broke the ice.

Some actors are born to be lead actors and that’s Lauren. There's an unshakeable focus and a real camaraderie and leadership. So even though the story was tense and dark at times, Lauren made it fun for everybody. The Kiwi crew absolutely adored her. It was a great experience and hopefully she comes back for a season two if we're lucky.

You've worked with other Scottish actors, Peter Mullan on Top of the Lake (2013) and James McAvoy in It: Chapter Two (2019).

I have. I was so scared to work with Peter Mullan because I was a much younger actor back then and he always plays the fiercest members of society but he's a deeply lovely, empathetic, beautiful man, and I just had a ball with Peter and also James McAvoy. Just really great, strong, men and no egos, which is surprising for two such strong characters on screen. Perhaps they knew I had Scottish ancestry so were nicer to me. I had a great experience with both of them.

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What was your favourite moment from filming The Ridge

There was a day towards the end of the series, where Ewan shows Mia the place he goes for solace. It's this beautiful coastal area with bird colonies on the edge of the cliff at the Pacific Ocean and it was the peak of summer, which I hadn't experienced for a long time because I've been living in Canada. To be there at the edge of the world, feeling like you can jump off this cliff into the beautiful Pacific Ocean, that was pretty special. It was a place neither Lauren or I had ever been before. It made for some stunning footage in the finale.

Have you ever lived in a small community like the one in The Ridge?

I’m in one right now as I speak.Where I live is on the wild coast of Auckland’s West Coast and that's where we shot a lot of The Ridge too, but not in my particular town. I own a little 1950s cottage. When I did Beauty and the Beast in America some time ago it was the first time I got paid a decent amount so I got this little cottage on the edge of where I grew up. It’s this very densely thick native bush with waterfalls, and it's just beautiful. It's a town of maybe 500, 600 people in summer at peak, but during winter you never know who’s here or not.


I do a lot of thrillers and horrors, so I often infuse a lot of my real experiences into these stories and there is folklore about this place, of a serial killer and people who come out here to take their lives and disappear. So there's a dark cloud, but it's also the most beautiful place to live, as long as you don't let that darkness in. But New Zealand has a lot of those places and I'm sure Scotland does as well, with a sense something strange has happened there.

You've played a variety of characters. How is Ewan different?

Ewan is quite a complicated character. I find playing characters with a darker side or deep secret really interesting because there's so much I can bring to it that's unsaid on the page.

I feel as I'm getting older I get cast in these more complicated and heavier roles and I like that. I started in teen romantic television, moved on to soap with Neighbours then theater and TV and films, so I've tried all the genres and tones.

Ewan's different in the sense he's probably not a character you would want to take home or to meet your mother. As I get older I have more life experience and like to play darker human beings. It's fascinating to explore behaviors that are not acceptable in real life and provide a psyche of the human character.

Tell us about your Scottish connection.

My Scottish side is through my maternal side, through my nana. My parents were quite young when they had me and my nana lived a three-minute walk away in the suburbs of Auckland so basically raised me. So the Scot side was quite strong in me. I spent so much time in her house and she wasn't a wealthy woman but kept it really lovely and had all of her mother's Scots things that were brought over. Her mother’s name was Cumming and she came over when she was 19 with her sister. She married an Irish man, so I've got the best of both. We don’t know a lot about the Scottish side of the family. They were working class people who didn't have time to reminisce about who was who, it was just get stuck in and make a living, survival mode, I guess.

So when I did my one-man show, The Packer, at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe - the only time I've ever been to Scotland - I was so desperate to find my lineage or some connection and went to the records office. It was before the internet existed and I said to the woman behind the desk I've come to find my lineage and this is the name and she said, good luck son, there are millions of files. So I kind of left it like that. But I need to finish my findings on that. One year I purchased ancestry kits for my mum and my father and said, please start the process but I'm still waiting.

Which of the trinkets and treasures you found of your nana's was your favourite?

This little porcelain Scots boy with his kilt and hat and bagpipes, and you'd wind it up and it would play Loch Lomond. It was just beautiful. I brought him back into the set of Ewan’s house. There are other things like old, very ornate whisky bottles they must have brought with them. Obviously, the whisky was long gone, but the bottle was still treasured.

And how did The Packer go down in Edinburgh? Did you have a great time?

Yeah, it was so cool. The play was written by my now wife, Dianna Fuemana. She comes from the Pacific Islands and is of Samoan and Niuean heritage, and we lived in neighboring suburbs so started talking about our cultures and what it was like growing up in New Zealand. She created this amazing one-hour play called The Packer set over 24 hours about a young man in a dead end job packing boxes and a Polynesian family move in next door to him and his solo mother. It gave you a slice of life of suburban Auckland. I played 10 different characters and Neighbours fans were shocked that Jack Scully, Delta Goodrem’s boyfriend on TV, was doing these strange things in a gritty show on stage. We got a really great couple of reviews and sold out. It was a stunning time for me. I was kind of launching here I am, I'm an actor and I'm not a soap actor. It sent me on a great path.

What's next for you?

Maybe season two of The Ridge. There is talk of that. I would love to if the story can make it work and maybe we could lure Lauren back for another summer. And I've got season two of North of North, a Netflix series which is the first Inuit comedy and set in the Arctic region of Canada. Then I'm working with Anna Torv again who was the lead in Territory and a brilliant actress, who has brought me on to her new production shooting in Australia, which is also a darker subject matter. Maybe that's my new path as I move into my 40s.

You lived in Canada for a long time, before moving back to New Zealand.

I got cast in Beauty and the Beast 15 years ago that was filmed in Toronto, then Mary Kills People, It Chapter Two, North of North, were all filmed in Toronto or Canada.

Is it good to be back in New Zealand?

Yeah. I was kind of missing home.
The Ridge brought me back. We were going to become Canadian. My daughter was born there. But Canada's in a strange place politically and it's not the place it used to be so we ran home as fast as we could to the safety of New Zealand and The Ridge came up at the same time so it was a perfect package.

The Ridge debuts on Tuesday 21 October in the UK on BBC iPlayer and BBC Scotland and in New Zealand on Sky Open, Neon, and Sky Go. BBC Two will air the series in the UK from Thursday 23 October.

It is available to view on BBC iPlayer, BBC Scotland, BBC Two, Sky Open and NEON.

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