Meet Underbelly star Danielle Cormack’s toyboy lover

When actress Danielle Cormack first met Pana Hema-Taylor, she couldn’t take her eyes off him. Yet the single mum from New Zealand did all she could to keep her feelings in check. After all, she reasoned, Pana was 19 years her junior. How could they possibly have a long-term relationship?

Two years on, Danielle, now 40, and Pana, 21, are in love and have a one-year-old son together, Te Ahi Ka. And life, it seems, could hardly be better. “There was undeniable chemistry right from the start, but at the time I didn’t feel it was appropriate to act on it,” the Underbelly: Razor actress reveals to New Zealand Woman’s Weekly.

“Pana is so charismatic. He’s the sort of person who’s magnetic to other people – they want to be around him. I was aware of that energy and then, for that to be directed at me…Wow!”Pana, an actor who overcame a troubled past as a teenage gang member to star in acclaimed New Zealand film Boy, never doubted that Danielle was the one for him. Waiting for the “right time” to make his feelings clear, Pana wanted to get to know Danielle, who was working on a play he was in as a costume/set designer.

When Danielle – who had been staunchly independent and on her own for almost a decade – gave Pana a lift home one night, he was immediately smitten. “During the car ride, I couldn’t help but stare, thinking, ‘Wow, she’s beautiful’,” he says. “We had a chat and… I’ve never really left.”

While Danielle initially tried to convince herself the relationship wouldn’t last beyond the final curtain call on the play, she says that when Pana told her he loved her, “It all fell into place… that overcame any barriers I felt might have been there.”