Blair Strang is a New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

. He is most noted for playing ambulance driver Rangi Heremaia on New Zealand's longest-running soap opera, Shortland Street

Shortland Street

Shortland Street is a New Zealand prime-time soap opera, first broadcast on Television New Zealand's TV2 on 25 May 1992. It is the country's longest-running drama and soap opera, being broadcast continuously for over 4500 episodes and 19 years, and is one of the most watched television programs in...

, between 1995 and 2001.

Early life

Born to a Pākehā

Pakeha

Pākehā is a Māori language word for New Zealanders who are "of European descent". They are mostly descended from British and to a lesser extent Irish settlers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, although some Pākehā have Dutch, Scandinavian, German, Yugoslav or other ancestry...

 father and a Māori mother , he attended Saint Kentigern College

Saint Kentigern College

Saint Kentigern College is a private, co-educational Presbyterian secondary school in the Pakuranga suburb of Manukau City in the Auckland region of New Zealand, beside the estuary of the Tamaki Estuary...

, Manukau City, where he was Head Prefect.

Career

As well as Shortland Street, Strang has appeared in television dramas Doves of War (for TV3

TV3 (New Zealand)

TV3 is a New Zealand commercial television network, owned by MediaWorks New Zealand. Launched on 26 November 1989, the first private television network in New Zealand...

), Orange Roughies

Orange Roughies

Orange Roughies is the name of a New Zealand drama television show created by Auckland-based film company Screenworks, the first season of which screened on TV ONE from May to July 2006. The second season has recently finished filming and is, according to TVNZ, due to screen sometime between...

(TV 1), Interrogation (Prime TV

Prime Television

PRIME7 is an Australian television network owned by Prime Media Group Limited. Prime Television launched on 17 March 1962 as CBN/CWN in Orange and Dubbo, New South Wales, and has since expanded to cover regional New South Wales, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory as a Seven Network...

), Go Girls

Go Girls

Go Girls is a New Zealand comedy/drama television series centering around four adult friends, Amy, Britta, Cody and Kevin, who live on the North Shore, Auckland...

and Nothing Trivial

Nothing Trivial

Nothing Trivial is a New Zealand comedy-drama television series, produced by South Pacific Pictures. The series is created by the duo of Gavin Strawhan and the co creator of Outrageous Fortune, Rachel Lang...

. He also made an appearance on So You Wanna be a Popstar?, hosted by Oliver Driver

Oliver Driver

Oliver Driver is a New Zealand actor, director, broadcaster and television presenter.-Television:Driver was the host of Let's Be Frank, and the Creative Director of New Zealand's only alternative music television station, ALT TV, The channel is now no longer on air...

, and starring Katrina Hobbs, and regularly appears in a variety of roles as a guest star or extra.

He completed filming Māori Television

Maori Television

Māori Television is a New Zealand TV station broadcasting programmes that make a significant contribution to the revitalisation of the Māori language and culture . Funded by the New Zealand Government, the station started broadcasting on 28 March 2004 from a base in Newmarket.Te Reo is the...

's new family drama, Kaitangata Twitch, which is an adaption of the children's book by author, Margaret Mahy

Margaret Mahy

Margaret Mahy ONZ is a well-known New Zealand author of children's and young adult books. While the plots of many of her books have strong supernatural elements, her writing concentrates on the themes of human relationships and growing up.Her books The Haunting and The Changeover: A Supernatural...

. He has also completed a successful New Zealand tour of the theatre piece, Whero's New Net.

Personal life

He has an LLB from the University of Auckland

University of Auckland

The University of Auckland is a university located in Auckland, New Zealand. It is the largest university in the country and the highest ranked in the 2011 QS World University Rankings, having been ranked worldwide...

, majoring in entertainment law, and is a practising family lawyer in West Auckland at Aotea Chambers.

He married his former Shortland Street

Shortland Street

Shortland Street is a New Zealand prime-time soap opera, first broadcast on Television New Zealand's TV2 on 25 May 1992. It is the country's longest-running drama and soap opera, being broadcast continuously for over 4500 episodes and 19 years, and is one of the most watched television programs in...

co-star Katrina Devine

Katrina Devine

Katrina Devine is a New Zealand actress.-Biography:During school, Devine acted in various amateur and school productions...

 on 10 November 2001; the couple later divorced.

Awards

In 2008 he won Metro magazine's "Outstanding Performance of the Year" award in a theatre piece with Massive Theatre Company called Whero's New Net.