Classic remake positive move
Shaun Bamber meets the ‘very Kiwi’ film’s ‘very Kiwi’ actor.
Regardless of what you think about whether or not they should have remade Goodbye Pork Pie, there’s no question that, like the original, Pork Pie is a ‘‘very Kiwi’’ film.
And like the movie he stars in, Pork Pie lead Dean O’gorman, a veteran of screens both big and small for more than a quarter century now, has had a ‘‘very Kiwi’’ career path as an actor.
He ticks the big three boxes – Shortland Street, Peter Jackson blockbuster (The Hobbit movies), TV drama scripted by James Griffin and Rachel Lang (The Almighty Johnsons). He also had roles on Hercules and Xena: Warrior Princess, something else that was practically mandatory for a Kiwi actor of his generation. (Apologies if that phrase makes Dean sound old but hey, the guy’s in his 40s now)
And like Pork Pie co-star James Rolleston, O’gorman even got his start as a professional actor fresh out of school. Admittedly, that’s maybe not your typical Kiwi actor’s start, but to me it still seems like a very Kiwi way to get going in the business. But back to Pork Pie. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to mention this, given it happens within the first few minutes of the movie, but O’gorman’s first line in Pork Pie – before we even see him on screen in fact – is a fart.
I mean, come on – how Kiwi is that?
Asked if he knows whether this flatulent first impression is a cinematic first or not, O’gorman disavows all knowledge.
‘‘It wasn’t my fart though. I don’t know whose it was,’’ he riffs. ‘‘It was very windy that day though.’’
It wasn’t quite a year ago that O’gorman travelled the length and breadth of New Zealand to make Pork Pie, and now he’s doing it again to promote it.
When I talk to him, the 40-yearold has a full day of publicity engagements, most alongside Pork Pie co-stars Rolleston and Ashleigh Cummings.
We’ve just finished a Facebook Live chat for the Stuff website, taking questions from all and sundry online, and there’s a couple in particular that keep coming up again and again.
The first, and perhaps the most vociferously expressed, is a plainand-simple – ‘‘why?’’ Why remake a film that is not only considered a Kiwi classic, but also very much a product of its time?
What, to put it bluntly, is the point of Pork Pie?
Quite rightly, O’gorman can’t really answer this, replying that it’s more a question for the film’s creator, writer-director Matt Murphy, son of Goodbye Pork Pie writer-director Geoff Murphy.
He does make an interesting point on the subject however.
‘‘You know, regardless of what people think about remaking or rebooting an old New Zealand classic, I think it ultimately says good things about our industry in that we have enough film now, and we’ve created enough of a history, to be able to go back to do a remake, you know what I mean?
‘‘People have their opinion and stuff, but for me the main positive thing is that there’s work being generated, and it’s our own local content that we’re exploring. We’re now starting to remake our own stuff. Which I think is a sign of a growing and healthy industry.’’
It’s a point well made, but as an actor, was there any trepidation in taking on a project with such a weight of Kiwi cinematic history behind it – and one that would inevitably draw comparison with its source material?
‘‘No, no more than doing any film, and thinking, ‘God, I hope this film works’,’’ says O’gorman.
‘‘I mean, this has the name that New Zealanders recognise, so I guess maybe there might be more attention than if it was just a film that people hadn’t heard of, but essentially you’re putting yourself up there to be judged, whether it’s for a film that people are comparing to another film, or if it’s just a film based on its own merits.
‘‘You always stand to be judged by people and that’s just something as an actor that you have to get used to.’’
For O’gorman at least, the appeal of Pork Pie had nothing to do with its history and everything to do with three simple questions – questions the actor asks himself before taking on any new job.
‘‘Do I like the script? Do I want to work with these people? And will it be a fun job? Those are my criteria,’’ he says.
‘‘And outside of that – you know, ‘will it be liked?’ – you can’t really ask yourself that question because, (a) you don’t know and, (b) I think trying to be liked can be quite detrimental to the creative process sometimes.
‘‘Because if you’re asking yourself, ‘What do I need to do to be liked?’, you’re asking yourself, ‘what do people want to see?’ – and I don’t know what people want to see. I just do what I do, and hopefully it resonates with people, you know?’’
Pork Pie
(M) is now screening in New Zealand cinemas.