Beautiful job for mug with character

LEE TUSON has good reason to be grateful he's a fairly ugly bugger.
Thanks to his looks, the movie and television actor has hardly been out of work for the past 19 years.
"Always the villain, never the vicar," he laughs, talking from his Whangarei home between the acting stints that might see him jet off to London or Hollywood several times a year.
Tuson gets his fair share of work in New Zealand, too. You might recognise the chap who's on the 2degrees ads with Rhys Darby. He's the hairy cellmate wearing a dress in one ad and the chap stomping along inelegantly in a pink camisole in another. He's in a few telly shows, too, usually action ones, and has a few feature films under his belt.
Tuson's waiting to hear whether he got the part he was invited to audition for - yes, asked to try one for one of the top roles - in The Hobbit, a movie that has had a doomed start but, as sure as eggs, will be made one day.
But possibly the movie that will gain him earlier recognition here - here being an adopted home for the Brit who came to Northland with his New Zealand partner, Tanya "for the good life" - is one that has its premier at the International Film Festival in Auckland tonight, The Insatiable Moon.
That movie is already the buzz in local film land ... for its interesting gestation as much for its all-star Kiwi cast, superb cinematography and healthy wallop of British funding in conjunction with the New Zealand Film Commission. The film also has strong Northland links, with Tuson, Ray Woolf and Rawiri Paratene among the actors.
Based on a book by theologian Mike Riddell - screenwritten and produced by him as well - The Insatiable Moon is set in a Ponsonby boarding house where the functioning dysfunctional barely live with their mental illness and addictions. Convinced he is the second son of God, Paratene's character moves into the house and sets about trying to prove who he really is.
Even making the movie had tough Tuson "laughing and crying". The characters were complex, some based on real people the actors met and visited often in similar halfway houses, and all had to be portrayed with honesty and dignity. He describes the whole experience of making that film as "beautiful".
Tonight's  premier is a 700-seat sell-out for the film that took eight years of negotiating  and disappointments before the first frame was shot. Ironically, after filming eventually started, it was in the can in a matter of weeks.
That seat-of-the-pants filming doesn't bother Tuson and it's certainly something Kiwis are adept at, he says. He has nothing but praise for his fellow actors in The Insatiable Moon and other Kiwi-made productions he's worked on.
 "I've always been impressed with the sheer amount of talent here in New Zealand, it's world class, but the industry just isn't that big."
Tuson is still  involved in the international industry. He has a small production company in London, called Laughing Gravy after the dog in the Marx brothers' movie of the same name. He also has to sell himself  if he wants to maintain the lifestyle and the level of work he has now.
"I absolutely love it," he says should the interviewer get the idea that side of the business is less meaningful.
Tuson got his break in acting by chance nearly 20 years ago when he was spotted on a London street by a casting agent and asked to audition for an anti-football hooliganism promo piece. Straightaway, he realised what a good lark it was. Luckily, he was asked to do more acting, went to drama school and started playing on his looks.
He was a stunt double for a few years, including for Ross Kemp (ex Eastenders) in gangster movie Ultimate Force, was in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, Her Line of Fire, Legend of the Seeker, and is currently playing a slave master in the filming of the Spartacus prequel TV series.
"My kids know you can pick up a rock with one hand, they see their dad do it all the time," Tuson jokes.
He's used to being recognised - and kids Rio, 10, and Mex, 7, take it in their stride, too. (Teenage daughter Raven still lives in London.) Mind you, the boys - and their father - get a bit of teasing about some of his telly  appearances.
"People are always coming up to me and saying, 'oi, aren't you that bloke in the pink dress?"'
It's a small price to pay and - thanks to an incredibly supportive partner, he says - so is travelling back to the UK and US for work.
"And if I want to go fishing at Toots [Tutukaka], I can. It doesn't get much better than that."