Almost famous

BY KIM KNIGHT

CAMERON RHODES appeared at the London Film Festival last week, smeared in mud, wearing a black lace negligee, brandishing a child's ride-on toy.

"You f---ker," he screamed repeatedly, during the Kiwi short film that has international festival goers blogging cryptically.

"The dolphin up the arse was rather poetic," wrote one fan.

The film, which has also been shown at festivals in Auckland, Melbourne, Switzerland and Sweden, is called Brave Donkey. It stars Rhodes – brave actor.

The 42-year-old's face might be more familiar than his name. He's in everything, but has yet to become famous for something. That is not as insulting as it sounds. Rhodes, for example, has not been in Shortland Street or Outrageous Fortune or any other regularly-in-your-living-room televised event. He has, however, been in Ladies Night, A Clockwork Orange, Hamlet – and around 50 other professional theatre productions over the past 20 years. This year he picked up local film and television award nominations for Brave Donkey, and the feature-length I'm Not Harry Jenson. He is currently acting in a Silo Theatre production of Loot. Michael Hurst (international television star) is directing the ensemble cast that includes David McPhail (local television veteran) and Mia Blake (hot young movie thing). How does Rhodes feel about being the "oh, that guy" of theatre?

"I suppose I've done a lot of theatre, and it's a very small select group of people who go to the theatre..."

"I'm not a celebrity by any stretch of the imagination. Would I want to be? I suppose the thing about being very famous when you're an actor is that you get to choose better roles. But I'm talking mega-famous. Brad Pitt or something."

But would Pitt wear a tutu? Would Pitt cavort in a carnival of the grotesque in the bowels of Auckland's Aotea Centre, a-la Rhodes in a recent adaptation of Kafka's The Trial?

"You saw The Trial?" says Rhodes, somewhat incredulously. "A lot of people hated it. And people liked it too, but it's not your normal play by any stretch. It was almost like an installation, an art experience."

For the record, he styled his character – easily the play's most memorable – on a combination of artist Tony Fomison and designer Alexander McQueen.

"I thought it was kind of out there and fun."

There's not much Rhodes won't do in the name of acting.

"What drives me is the experience of telling stories and working with great teams of people. I go to work because I love being able to play different characters."

Skim a few recent theatre reviews. He doesn't always play the lead, but he certainly occupies the hearts of critics. Typical praise: "Cameron Rhodes enlivens all the scenes he appears in."

Who is this man who should be more famous than his current CV (pacifist friend number two; red-headed man; etc) suggests?

He was born in Wellington. His GP father worked on the beach the day of the Wahine disaster. His childhood, he claims, was ordinary. Except, that as a third-former, he played soccer, not rugby, took Maori and studied drama.

"It was a good solid state school upbringing – but drama took over."

If you were on a train from the Hutt Valley in the 1980s, you might have wondered about the earnest young man reading Russian acting guru Stanislavski. That was Rhodes, enroute to youth theatre productions in the city.

"I remember meeting people like [Shortland Street's] Michael Galvin. Very sophisticated, cool people who were all a little bit older than me. I was the nerdy boy from the Hutt with sort of an afro, and ginger hair..."

He quit high school at the end of his sixth form and went straight to Victoria University. "My first week at university was like going to New York. It was a very sparkly place."

He once considered becoming an Anglican minister ("there's something theatrical about the church") but ended up in Toi Whakaari drama school, graduating with the likes of Kerry Fox, Jed Brophy, Theresa Healey and Outrageous Fortune's Robyn Malcolm.

"Robyn and I had this fantasy of being actors in the Royal Shakespeare Company..."

And the pair did perform Shakespeare together, touring with the New Zealand Actors Company. From A Midsummer Night's Dream in Greymouth et al; to the festival piece Leah (where the king was played by a woman) that never sold seats and eventually closed the fledgling national company.

Will New Zealand ever support a national theatre? "I hope so," says Rhodes. "The Scottish national theatre is possibly a model, where there's no actual building, but they perform all over Scotland in carparks or anywhere. It's just so expensive touring and so difficult. However, it was such a wonderful thing to perform all over the country."

Rhodes believes Kiwi theatre is ripe for the international market.

"We're a niche market, like the boutique or the deli, but we're starting to be noticed because of international arts festivals."

And, of course, those movies. Rhodes had one line as the Gryphon in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. He was on screen for approximately 30 seconds in Lord of the Rings. It's his role in the latter – Farmer Maggot – that has garnered Rhodes his biggest audience. Albeit that weird, convention-driven fanbase that scores you multiple Facebook friend requests from Germany.

"Conventions are such intense places. Several thousand people and they're all there to see you. I've been to two. They were extremely surreal."

The drama teacher, director and voice of TSB Bank's television advertising campaign has not been forced to work in hospitality since 1994. A rare feat for a New Zealand thespian.

"There is no security whatsoever," confirms Rhodes. "You have to embrace the utter randomness.

"I suppose I'm the sort of person who is growing into roles. Say you're a pretty boy or man as a younger person, your use-by date in that sort of role might be different. But because I've always been a character actor, that's not necessarily going to be a problem."

At drama school, he recalls, students were told that if they survived their career choice until they were 30, they were probably in it for life.

"They said it takes at least 10 years to be an actor. I think it takes about 20. I'm only now really having any idea what I'm doing."

Loot, Herald Theatre, Aotea Centre, Auckland, until November 21.

- © Fairfax NZ News