Jake muscles up

Temuera’s powerful message on violence

Actor Temuera Morrison has described in a powerful video for Women’s Refuge how the violent character Jake the Muss has become part of his make-up.

Morrison, who shot to worldwide fame playing Jake in 1994’s Once Were Warriors, describes how he got so deep into the role that he started to believe in it.

‘‘That character is there with me for life now,’’ Morrison says.

The video was filmed to help raise funds for the refuge’s annual appeal.

Morrison says he would get into character so that when he walked into a room people would feel on edge. ‘‘Is he going to punch me, is he going to look at me in a nice way?’’.

He remembered one time feeling so exhausted he started ‘‘ranting and raving and screaming and yelling.

‘‘When you’re making the film you’re not really thinking of the implications... we put on our clothes, our leathers and we put our tattoos on and it came time to finish the day’s filming we were able to rub all the tattoos off, take our leathers off ... and go home to our normal life, whereas a lot of our people they can’t rub their tattoos off ... that is their life, they’re stuck in that movie.’’

Morrison says in the video that young men look up to Jake and glorify him, which upsets him.

‘‘Here we are in the year 2016, 20 years since Once Were Warriors but the problem’s got worse. We speak of whanau, we speak of aroha, we say all those words but I think we’re just saying the words.’’

Women’s Refuge chief executive Ang Jury said Morrison’s experience showed how stereotypes could attach to people.

‘‘The image portrayed on the screen is something that’s incredibly real. He talks about how that image of Jake has dogged him, that he’s been seen as being that person, and he talks in the video of how he almost became that person.

‘‘It was just a movie and it became a reality.’’

Jury hoped the video would help to demystify the Jake the Muss character.

‘‘Morrison has for so long been associated with everything that sits around that Jake the Muss character – I think there are still people who’d look at that image and almost glorify it because of the power it holds.’’

This year’s annual appeal highlights the increasing cost of providing services to domestic violence victims and the perilous state of Women’s Refuge finances.

Jury said money was needed urgently to provide services to keep women and children safe.

The campaign runs throughout July.

❚ Go online to donate at www.womensrefuge.org.nz