Rodney's double act

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Most of the time, no one would ever mistake Michael Hurst for Rodney Hide.

One is a slim and stylish star of stage and screen with a full head of hair. The other is a flat-vowelled right-wing politician, and still far from skinny despite recent calorie-burning adventures in ballroom dancing and harbour swimming.

But it's amazing what you can do with a few litres of latex, five hours of make-up and a fat suit.

Hurst, a Shakespearean actor probably still best known for his high-kicking turns in the 1990s US TV series Hercules: the Legendary Journeys, went to great lengths to transform himself into Hide for the forthcoming Kiwi film We're Here to Help, which recounts the true story of Christchurch businessman David Henderson's four-year battle with the IRD in the 1990s. Hide befriended the beleaguered property developer and played a key role in Henderson's eventual victory over the taxman.

Hide, now Act leader, was delighted, then dismayed, when he learnt he was to be immortalised on film by Hurst: "I thought, that's good because everyone will think I'm hot because Michael Hurst plays me. Then I turned up on the set and he was in a blobby suit."

Hide is extremely proud to have lost weight during his hilariously inept stint on TV's Dancing With the Stars, but unfortunately the film is set in the 1990s, when Hide weighed about 40kg more than he does now.

This is not the first time Hurst has transformed himself into a politician. He once played tyrannical National Party leader Rob Muldoon, and claims that he would not rule out playing Helen Clark.

"I'm not adverse to drag," he told the Sunday Star-Times.

Hide, who last year claimed that he had turned a new leaf and was rising above the name-calling and childishness of modern politics, said: "You wouldn't need to go into drag."

* We're Here to Help, produced by South Pacific Pictures, is released on Nov 8.

- © Fairfax NZ News