Whangārei Boys High School drama student M’Lago Morris in The Convert alongside Guy Pearce

M'Lago Morris with director Lee Tamahori.

One week he was studying Guy Pearce’s performance in Priscilla Queen of the Desert, the next, Whangārei Boys High School (WBHS) drama student M’Lago Morris found himself “playing dead” in a loin cloth working alongside the famous actor in a combative movie out this month.

The Convert is about to open at New Zealand cinemas and WBHS year 13 deputy head boy M’Lago Morris is hosting an exclusive opening screening as a fundraiser toward his career path of performing at the prestigious Globe Theatre in July. Starring alongside him in the Lee Tamahori-directed movie are another nine WBHS students and a former WBHS te reo Māori teacher.

The last-minute movie role came about in 2022 after Morris had placed first in a historical European martial arts competition for sidesword. His club was contacted through an agency in need of actors who could perform combat for the movie. Through Morris’ connection with the school, a further nine boys were selected by drama teacher Peter Cook.

Recalls Morris: “I had a few conversations with [Guy Pearce]. He was a super-chill dude and down-to-earth. I thought he was really polite actually. I told him it was funny timing as I’d just done a film study on Priscilla Queen of the Desert and had been studying the character he played. I said I had a really crude drawing of him and he said if I brought it, he’d sign it, but, unfortunately, it was in Whangārei.”

The film The Convert starring Guy Pearce, Tioreore Ngātai Melbourne and directed by Lee Tamahori.

The former Neighbours star and multi-award-winning Australian actor Pearce has starred in a string of hit movies including Memento and L.A. Confidential.

The Convert is a historical drama set in pre-colonial Aotearoa telling the story of a generational blood feud between Māori tribes.

Pearce’s character Thomas Munro arrives on the shore of a British settlement as a new preacher seeking redemption from a dark past which is soon drawn into question and his mission put to the test. As he finds himself stuck between tense family dynamics and communities, he learns how to navigate his way on this new land.

While Morris’ role entailed two weeks filming in Auckland with 2am starts, usually ending at 8pm, his WBHS peers – years 12 and 13 at the time – were part of another tribe with their role involving three days from 5am-6pm filming at Matapouri.

Says Cook: “None of them came back complaining. They had their hair dyed and extensions put in, make-up and tattoos, but they all came back saying it was an incredible experience.”

Cook had been asked to select Māori or Pasifika boys to play members of a tribe. While some were drama students, others had no experience.

“Some were rugby or rugby league players, a couple of them were really shy, and two were head boys. I would just approach boys around the school and ask, ‘Do you want to be in a movie?’ The boys just went, ‘Yeah, we’ll have a crack at that’.”

It’s not known how much screen time they get but the WBHS students can be seen fighting in a battle on the movie trailer.

M'Lago on-set with former WBHS teacher Tomika Whiu

Morris’ role required wearing a maro (flax loin cloth) while fighting with a musket and playing “dead on a bench right in front of good old Guy Pearce for multiple hours”.

On set, he spoke with former WBHS and Māori immersion teacher Tomika Whiu, an actor fluent in te reo, who played a lead role. He also had chats with the award-winning Tamahori, known for directing the 1994 film Once Were Warriors, 2001′s Along Came a Spider starring Morgan Freeman, and the James Bond film Die Another Day.

“From what I’ve heard, he did come out of retirement for this movie. It was something he clicked with and wanted to do. I was surprised at Lee’s colloquial language. He was older than I expected so I was expecting the conversation to be much more reserved, how talking to an elderly person would be like. But when I asked him if I could get a photo of him, he said, ‘Yeah bro, for sure’. It was funny because he talked like some of my school mates. He was really easy to get on with and I admire his work.”

Morris’ goal is to become a director himself – a statement he dropped into conversation with Tamahori over lunch one day – and he’s already well on his way toward stardom.

Last year he performed at the prestigious national Sheilah Winn Shakespeare Festival in Wellington, receiving the Physical, Emotional and Political Commitment to Your Work award after performing a five-minute scene from the Tempest, which also won Outstanding Costume Design and Most Thought-Provoking Performance.

His performance and that of now former WBHS student Jackson Terry, won them the opportunity to be part of the National Shakespeare School Production (NSSP) learning and performing Shakespeare excerpts in Wellington. From there, they were both selected, among 24 young New Zealanders, to represent Aotearoa as part of Shakespeare Globe Centre New Zealand (SGCNZ) for the Young Shakespeare Company bound for the Globe Theatre in London. They will be performing, taking part in workshops, talks and watching performances over three weeks.

Whangārei Boys High School students Jackson Terry and M'Lago Morris. Photo / NZME

Shakespeare’s Globe is a world-renowned theatre and cultural landmark located on the banks of the River Thames. It is a reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, an Elizabethan playhouse for which William Shakespeare wrote his plays. The original theatre was built in 1599, destroyed by fire in 1613, rebuilt in 1614, and then demolished in 1644. The modern Globe Theatre is an academic approximation based on available evidence of the 1599 and 1614 buildings, though modern safety requirements mean that it accommodates only 1400 spectators compared to the original theatre’s 3000.

Cook, who teaches drama alongside Fiona Churcher, says it is a historic moment for WBHS, which has never had more than one student take the stage in London at the same time. However, the drama teacher of around 30 years, 19 of them in the UK, says performing arts is a strength at WBHS with the school currently sitting at the top of the country after winning six awards at last year’s nationals and achieving well above the national average at Level 3.

“Last year’s senior Level 3 performers achieved outstanding NZQA results, well above the national average for drama. M’Lago and the current cohort are also expected to attain NCEA Level 3 grades well above the national average. Drama is currently popular and professional, thanks to senior performing role models like M’Lago and Jackson.”

While it is not uncommon for the school to be approached for movie roles, The Convert is said to be the highest-budget production from Aotearoa.

For Pearce, the film script immediately caught his eye and, with Tamahori directing, he knew he had to be a part of the project.

“I thought the script was immediately poignant and realistic and quite profound. And knowing that Lee was going to be making this, I just knew that there was a tenderness and an intelligence to it that perhaps others wouldn’t bring,” said Pearce in a 2023 NZME interview, revealing that he had embraced his Kiwi ancestry by getting two permanent tattoos by the film’s tā moko designer. One is a mountain reflected in a lake, designed to represent his young son Monte. The other, a feather motif representing his late, Auckland-born father, who, he said was very present on his mind while making The Convert.

Pearce headed to Hollywood after his breakthrough role as Felicia in 1994′s The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. There he met Kiwi director Tamahori, who was there after the success of Once Were Warriors. They clicked and agreed to work together some day. Finally, nearly three decades later, they have.

Believed to be Tamahori’s swansong, he said he had Pearce in mind when he was writing The Convert. Plus, Pearce could ride a horse. His character Munro has brought his white stallion to New Zealand and upon arrival, he and the horse dive in and head for the beach. “I’m very comfortable on a horse but if you haven’t ridden a long time and they say, ‘Can you gallop up and down this beach a few times,’ I can guarantee you can’t walk very well the next day, or the day after that. I was paying the price,” he later said.

Tamahori didn’t warm to the project initially. “Originally, Munro, who’s our lead character, was really a religious zealot, which was not an attractive proposition for me, and I didn’t like him as a character,” he says in the film’s production notes. “I wouldn’t go and see a film about a guy like that.”

Jackson Terry (left), and M'Lago Morris (right) with drama teacher Peter Cook.

Instead, the director delved into the histories of prominent missionaries such as Henry Williams and Samuel Marsden. Williams had served time in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars before becoming a man of the cloth. That idea of a priest with a military past he’s possibly trying to escape primed Pearce’s character.

Tamahori describes the film as an opportunity for us to see Māori as they were before the influence of Europeans.

“Agriculture, clothing, weaponry, transport, and most important of all their relationship with the land, waterways, and sea. This is a film where the European community exists in the Māori world on Māori terms.”

The rest of the cast includes Jacqueline McKenzie (Deep Blue Sea, Romper Stomper) and Kiwi actors Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne (Whina), Dean O’Gorman (Pork Pie), Te Kohe Tuhaka (The Dead Lands), Antonio Te Maioha (Waru, The Dead Lands) and Lawrence Makoare (The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Hobbit trilogy, The Dead Lands).

Ngatai-Melbourne says it was the bringing together of the new British settlers and Māori that drew her to the film.

“What was appealing for me was that this wasn’t a Māori against Pākehā story, it is a story about how Māori educated Pākehā and how Pākehā educated Māori.”

While The Convert made its world debut at the Toronto Film Festival in Canada, its New Zealand opening will be held as a private event on March 14 at Whangārei’s Event Cinemas and it’s been a long wait for Morris to see himself on the big screen.

“My dream is to head abroad to study overseas and hopefully go into directing in theatre while taking a double degree in law. I would really like to take New Zealand theatre to the world stage and really get the Māori tongue out there,” he says, adding that while he won’t find out what he will be performing at the Globe until last-minute, he plans to incorporate te reo.

“One day I’d love to be a household name director and, if possible, a way to represent Northland on a larger scale. The next Peter Jackson, Taika Waititi, Lee Tamahori…”

Tickets can be purchased through Eventfinda. Each ticket, priced at $34.05, includes a complimentary popcorn and glass of bubbles or non-alcoholic beverage contributing toward the $12,500 needed for Morris to reach the Globe. A Givealittle page has been set up at: https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/empowering-murcie-lago-mlago-to-grace-the-globe#