As the saying goes, variety is the spice of life and no-one knows this better than veteran actor George Henare. He tells Rebecca Fox about his latest challenges.
At the age of 71, George Henare is about to pack his bags and move across the Ditch for two years, doing a new job.
The prospect does not faze the veteran actor, as he has committed to two years in Disney's Australian production of the Broadway hit musical Aladdin (from the producer of The Lion King and Mary Poppins) which attracted more than 1.2million people and broke theatre records in New York.
‘‘With only one production to concentrate on it'll be a nice rest,'' he says.
As Sir Joseph Porter in HMS Pinafore, Henare is travelling New Zealand, including Dunedin this month, before settling in Christchurch for a season of Educating Rita. He will then relocate to Sydney where he will play the Sultan in Aladdin.
‘‘It came out of the blue. It's been a bit of an anxious time clearing out the apartment.''
The decision to take the role took some consideration.
‘‘There is the test - I'm happy here doing what I'm doing and then there's the devil-may-care side of me saying it's time for a change - I obeyed that one.
‘‘As I get older, time moves pretty quickly.''
Not that he has much time to ponder the decision, with back-to-back jobs planned until his departure.
He has been immersed in the Gilbert and Sullivan play, being directed by Geraldine Brophy, for the past month, enjoying being back singing.
It was singing that led to his discovery of acting. While at teachers' college in the early 1960s he was also training in singing and at his teacher's urging auditioned for the opera Porgy and Bess, which opened his eyes to the joys of acting.
A year's leave from his teacher training confirmed his love for acting and when he was recalled to do his final teacher training he resigned ‘‘on the spot''.
‘‘When I decided I wanted to be an actor, it was the end of the singing.''
After a few years in Wellington working in television and radio, he moved to Auckland and joined the Mercury Theatre. Since then he has ‘‘never stopped''.
So the farm boy from Gisborne went on to become one of New Zealand's most recognised actors, appearing on stage, film, television and doing voice-overs and recording (he was named Talking Books Narrator of the Year in 2001).
Frequently people approach him saying ‘‘haven't I just seen you in Te Papa or didn't I hear you at Waitangi or in the Edmund Hillary Centre?''
‘‘Yes, I'm everywhere. Even Grant Dalton said ‘Aren't you the bloke who did the America's Cup stuff for New Zealand?' Yes, but I don't sound like that all the time. It's all part of the job.''
He was lucky to enter theatre in the days when there were permanent theatre companies, not like today.
‘‘Now they engage actors to come in; it's all freelance work, which is a shame. It was at the Mercury that I learned so much, as you got a variety of roles to play.''
There were also a lot more actors coming out of the country's drama schools.
‘‘In my day there weren't that many.''
It was also the time when a New Zealand voice was emerging. One of his breakthrough roles was in Bruce Mason's 1969 play Awatea.
After Mercury's demise in 1992, he worked in Australia with the Melbourne Theatre Company and Sydney theatre companies. He also toured with Jesus Christ Superstar and Phantom of the Opera.
He won a Qantas Award in 2010 for best actor for his role in the Margaret Mahy fantasy series Kaitangata Twitch and also won acting prizes in the 2000 Television Awards for roles in Nga Tohu: Signatures and a Chapman Tripp Award for Death of a Salesman in 2006.
In 2009 he was named an Arts Foundation Laureate, having also been awarded an OBE for services to theatre in 1998 (the year he also won the best theatrical performance award for his role in Jesus Christ Superstar at the Entertainer of the Year Awards) and a Te Waka Toi, Te Tohu Toi Ke Award for outstanding contribution to Maori theatre in 2008.
In 2010, he was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to theatre.
Despite appearing in some of New Zealand's most well-known television programmes - including Shortland Street - and films - Once Were Warriors - stage was his favourite medium.
‘‘On stage, you're really the boss. You bond with the audience and they take a journey with you, whereas in film or television, everything is at the mercy of the man with the scissors.''
He was able to play such a wide variety of characters because of his observance of human behaviour, he said. He used those observances to create his characters.
Henare had performed in Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance, enjoying the experience.
‘‘It was great fun. This similarly holds a mirror up to society, lampoons the upper class. It is a lovely light frolic.''
In HMS he plays Sir Joseph Porter, the First Lord of the Admiralty, a character based on the real character of W.H. Smith, who rose to his position of authority with no experience.
‘‘Having a dig at that character is what Gilbert loved doing.''
HMS features songs such as Little Buttercup and He is an Englishman and also pokes fun at patriotism, party politics and the Royal Navy.
