Temuera Morrison is about to launch an all-out assault on our screens with the release of two new films and a television series, writes Russell Baillie.
He's a hard man to keep track of, is Temuera Morrison. A sit-down with the actor to talk about Tracker - as well as his forthcoming roles in Spartacus: Gods of the Arena and superhero movie The Green Lantern - requires patience and a good short-term memory.
"Now where was
I?" he asks after every cellphone call he takes. There's three in the space of 30 minutes. One sounds like it's bad news from his accountant, another is a reminder from Maori TV asking whether he can bring his guitar to an interview ("Do you still want a song at the end, just a lighthearted Hoki Mai or something?" he asks).
He promises to turn his phone off. He doesn't. If that seems rude, you get the feeling it's because it would seem ruder to those who have his number if he didn't answer.
When he's talking about his latest jobs though, he's full steam ahead - funny, self-deprecating and not afraid to admit he's nervous about Tracker, which is his first big screen lead role in an age.
Set in 1903, the British-NZ co-production with English director Ian Sharp casts Morrison as a whaler, who, having been accused of murder while ashore, hotfoots it to the high country of his iwi pursued by Ray Winstone. Morrison does a lot of acting in it - he's worried a bit too much.
"I was pushing my energy levels so much so I might have gone too far. And that is another reason I am a little bit nervous and apprehensive. I'm good at doing this ..." he says, staring staunchly and square-jawed, "when other actors are doing something, I'll do something less. We call it minimalisation.
"But I realised Ray's the man for this. He's the tracker. He's got that earthiness that rawness ... he's the Clint Eastwood of West Ham. So it's no good both of us trying to out-minimalise each other."
One pivotal scene has Morrison in a one-man haka - "I thought, my kapa haka experience comes in handy here. No acting required" - and his character frequently swings between Maori and English in his conversations with his eventual captor.
The Tracker script was written by Nicolas van Pallandt, a Dutch writer who emigrated to New Zealand but who died in 2006 as the film went through its protracted gestation. Morrison says the Maori cultural elements were lacking in the original drafts, but writers Brad Haami and Ngamaru Raerino introduced elements to Kereama's back-story that he could draw on as an actor.
"They gave me a better well to draw water from. In this case, to draw my emotion from. As an actor you need it or you are just making it up. They came in with everything and put the canoe right."
Though Tracker's own steering amuses Morrison: "I was running out of the bush in West Auckland into the Southern Alps" he laughs. And there's another scene at Moke Lake near Queenstown he hates because if you look closely enough it's not exactly South Island High Country, circa 1900.
"I am waiting for the cows to gently walk across the back of shot ... or a Toyota Land Cruiser to go zooming past."
But he enjoyed the shoot with the no-fuss, no-shouting style of Sharp and the company of Winstone.
Afterwards, Morrison was off to New Orleans for his role as the alien Abin Sur in The Green Lantern, directed by expatriate New Zealander Martin Campbell - who cast Morrison as a helicopter pilot in the South Island-shot mountaineering movie The Vertical Limit.
After his Star Wars role of Jango Fett, Abin Sur should increase Morrison's stocks on the international pop culture convention circuit. "Yeah. It looks like I am off to all the conventions. I never do the conventions in New Zealand because New Zealanders think it's stupid to pay for an autograph."
Also raising Morrison's profile is his role as gladiator trainer Doctore in the Spartacus prequel, the role which Peter Mensah took in the original series - he's kind of the Jango to Mensah's Boba, so to speak. So it was out to the warehouse sets of Mt Wellington for weeks of training before the cameras rolled. "I'm still recovering from that shoot. There is no CGI. Those boys work hard. We were training 7.30am to 1pm in the afternoon. We were training harder than the All Blacks."
And no he wasn't required up at the Batiatus household with Lucy Lawless' Lucretia and those scantily clad slave girls. "No. I was stuck on the sands with those ugly gladiators."
Still if he ever updates his recent autobiography, From Haka to Hollywood, there's some new stories to tell. Or maybe not. "Here's a funny story right? I get a letter the other day and on the letterhead it's got Penguin Group. I go, 'At last, a royalty cheque for my book sales'. I open the letter: 'We regret to advise due to lack of sales - in fact, no sales - your book has been pulled off the shelves' ..." he giggles.
So what next? "Well I did ring my agent in LA and asked him the same question. And his reply was 'Cliff [Curtis] has got another film coming out'. I didn't really want to hear about Cliff's films. I wanted to hear what you have got for me?" So it seems after this burst of activity, Morrison is a man waiting for his phone to ring. Again.
LOWDOWN
Who: Temuera Morrison and Ray Winstone
What: Tracker
When: Opens at cinemas May 5
Also: Morrison stars in the series Spartacus: Gods of the Arena screening on The Box (Sky TV) from May 1, 9.30pm
-TimeOut
