Seize the day

Gareth Reeves. Photo / Martin Sykes

The traditional stereotype of actors existing perpetually "between jobs" is not one which could be applied to Aucklander Gareth Reeves.

The 31-year-old has had a phenomenally busy couple of years which has seen him rubbing shoulders with big name stars and now on the verge of moving to Hollywood. It's also seen him slogging through rain-soaked bush, trekking through snow and being buried in a shallow grave.

Not that he's complaining. He knows he's living the life every actor dreams of. Take this anecdote about working with Ray Winstone on the upcoming film Tracker: "I was sitting next to him up at Karekare one day. I had fallen off my horse on the first day of shooting and I had a stomach bug. I thought 'I'm sitting next to Ray Winstone, I should try to start a conversation. I asked him how he was enjoying New Zealand. He turned round and looked at me, then out to sea. 'Look at this,' he said. 'F***ing paradise, innit?' I stopped thinking about my own problems after that."

Reeves made his name in TV's The Insider's Guide to Happiness, but his first leading role came in Greg King's A Song of Good, for which he won a best lead actor gong in the 2008 NZ Film and Television Awards.

Since then he's appeared in Underbelly, The Cult and Go Girls, as well as acting in three feature films.

One of those, I'm Not Harry Jenson, conversely the most gruelling to make, he credits with opening the door to Hollywood.

Reeves plays the lead role of Stanley Merse, a crime novelist who specialises in writing from the perspective of serial killers. Unable to continue with a particularly difficult book, he returns to New Zealand for a cathartic walk in the Waitakeres. When his fellow trampers start dying, Merse finds he has blood on his hands.

The film was shot for an almost unbelievable $175,000.

""We were all out in the bush together getting cold and wet and muddy, carrying gear around," recalls Reeves. But with veteran actors Ian Mune and Ilona Rodgers (both pushing 70) leading by example, the cast just got on with it. "Everyone was on the same mission. We all gave 110 per cent."

Possibly more challenging for Reeves was the preparation needed to play the intense and psychologically fragile Merse, who suspects that he is somehow channelling the psychotic mass-murderer Harry Jenson.

Watching internet footage of serial killers describing their crimes proved especially disturbing. "Listening to Jeffrey Dahmer speaking from prison about lobotomising young men ... one or two hours of that stuff and you won't be sleeping very soundly. But it helped me understand."

Inevitably, some of that intensity gets taken home at the end of the day. "It does drip into real life. My partner (Serena Cotton) is an actress so we have had this conversation. We're able to notice it and let a few things slide."

Reeves grew up in Christchurch, studying drama in Wellington before moving to Auckland where he lives in a "five flatmate house in Kingsland".

Fortunately he's always loved the outdoors, handy for shooting Harry Jenson, riding in the mountains around Glenorchy for Tracker and working in the snow fields of Cardrona for the upcoming film Ice, starring Sam Neill and Patrick Bergin.

He's clearly thrilled to be working alongside actors of that calibre.

So, is Ray Winstone really as scary as he comes across in his many violent roles?

"He's a pussycat," Reeves laughs. "He used to listen to Dionne Warwick songs on the car stereo on the way to the shoot."

Harry Jenson is Reeves' second leading role, and he makes it his own, with the entire film orbiting around his intensely controlled performance. A copy of the film was sent to a talent manager in the United States, resulting in an invitation for Reeves to travel to LA next month for pilot season auditions.

He's excited, but typically pragmatic. "I've been told I shouldn't expect a proper job. But it's about doing all those auditions and getting in front of all those casting directors. My films have been bringing that world a little bit closer. Harry Jenson has played a big part in that."

All that mud and guts seems to have won Reeves a shot at the big time.

"I'm 31. If I don't do it now, I might never do it. I don't want to die wondering if I could have made it."

* I'm Not Harry Jenson is out in cinemas from this Thursday.