Glitter girl sparkles

BY CATHERINE WOULFE

IT'S Shannon Ryan's third Big Day Out and her first day on TV.

First clip: Ryan is in the stands, interviewing Tom Meighan, the frontman for British indie rock band Kasabian. Ryan's nervous but professional. She checks her notes often, nods, laughs.

By the end of the interview, Meighan has swivelled his whole body towards her. He's jiggling in his seat and looks like he's about to go in for a smooch.

"You have been very patient and loving," he breathes. She cracks up.

Second clip: Ryan is more relaxed now, lying on the grass talking to singer Ladyhawke. The camera angle makes Ryan's legs longer and her shorts shorter. Ladyhawke can hardly take her eyes off her.

Cut to an Auckland cafe.

Ryan's wearing a pale blue sundress and nibbling on an avocado bagel. She has a genuine, gawky sort of gorgeousness, like Katie Holmes circa Dawson's Creek. Her eyelashes are so long they look fake. "They're real," she says. "I get asked that all the time."

The figure, too, is totally non-calculated. Although she usually eats healthily, Ryan talks about downing a whole chocolate cake, her weak spot for Burger King's Tater Tops, and her deep love of carbs.

"Bread's my favourite food ... I'm not going to complain if I get warm bread and butter for dinner."

It's hard to believe Ryan is 21. She has a mature voice, poise and a quiet wisdom, and has just won one of the top jobs in music broadcasting – presenting C4's The Official New Zealand Top 40.

Ten days into her dream job, Ryan says her focus has shifted, but not lessened. "Now it's about really nailing this... I do really, really want to be bloody good at this."

Ryan celebrated the screening of her first Top 40 show with a pot-luck dinner at her mum and stepfather's home in Glorit, north of Kaukapakapa. They live on Ryan's grandparents farm. Ryan moved there when she was nine and went to a two-classroom primary school before heading to Mahurangi College in Warkworth.

Ryan says if she could choose one cause to support now, it would be bullying. She worries that her four-year-old stepbrother, who wears red-lensed glasses to correct an eye problem, might be bullied like she was.

"I've always felt like I got teased and left out at school," she says. "Being really skinny... I was always doing sports and school projects and pantomimes and speeches and that kind of thing, and I imagine for other kids that would be really annoying."

Ryan left school halfway through seventh form and did six months of broadcasting training in Auckland. She picked up part-time work at George FM (where she still reads the morning news) and, when she was 19, she met Australian DJ Dan Matthews at one of his gigs.

Theirs is a cute little love story. They had their first proper date up Mt Eden, eating fish and chips and drawing pictures with chalk.

After Matthews flew home, he talked to Ryan every day, and came back to Auckland a month later. "That was when we kissed for the first time, at the arrivals at the airport," Ryan smiles. "We kind of talked about it, like, `you do realise that this is going to be our first kiss – it has to be spectacular' and it was, because we got to plan it."

Six months later Matthews moved here for good. Now the couple live in an apartment in Eden Terrace, just around the corner from C4. They get up at sixish every morning and Ryan goes to George FM, while Matthews works in his home studio. Ryan comes home at about 11am for an egg on toast, then heads to C4. She goes to bed late – running on adrenaline, she reckons – and is clearly, utterly happy.

The couple say they never notice the nine years between them (Matthews is 30) and he says Ryan is the most sensible girl he knows. At her 21st last year, Ryan insisted on making most of her 21 shots water (the others were gin, so no-one could tell) and both her and Matthews are too dedicated to their work to party hard.

"I'll go out sober a lot of times," Ryan says. "But then other times I'll go out and have a drink and Dan and I just love bubbles, so we'll sit down with a bottle of bubbles and enjoy that."

Ryan spent New Year's Eve at the Rhythm and Vines festival in Gisborne, dressed as a "space hippy" with her face covered in silver glitter.

The glitter has gone rogue in her make-up bag, so she is constantly spotting sparkles on her face.

"That's my dilemma at the moment, it's probably the only thing I'll be complaining about this week.

"Makes you feel a bit guilty, eh? 'Oh, my damn glitter!"'

- © Fairfax NZ News