Pirates star recounts Stolen experience
The latest international movie to be filmed in our backyard might have traversed the Canterbury region, but one British star found himself almost completely confined to indoors. Former This Life and Pirates of the Caribbean star Jack Davenport admits he had hoped working on The Stolen would be an opportunity to see the sights, but unfortunately his role as the charismatic and mysterious Joshua McCullen only afforded him one outdoor scene.
‘‘It was so bizarre,’’ the 44-yearold actor says, on the phone from his home in New York, ‘‘You travel halfway around the world and everything you do is inside. It seems ridiculous on one level, but that’s so true of showbusiness. I have travelled all over the world and in someways seen very little of it because I go to a place and then you’re somewhat limited to where you have to shoot.
‘‘On the other hand, sometimes that means you get to go to parts of the country that no tourist ever gets to go to, so it is kind of swings and roundabouts.’’
Davenport, who did manage a day trip across to Akaroa while filming here in the middle of 2016, plays a key role in the 1860s-set New Zealand drama. McCullen is the owner of Goldtown, centre of the Goldrush and where a distraught Charlotte Lockton ( Starter for 10‘ s Alice Eve) has travelled to in search of her kidnapped son. The film, directed by Niall Johnson ( White Noise, KeepingMum) and co-written and produced by Christchurch-born Emily Corcoran, also stars Kiwi singer Stan Walker and New Zealand icon Richard O’Brien.
As well as the opportunity to work somewhere he’d always wanted to go, Davenport says he was fascinated by the film’s setting. ‘‘The first thing that got my attention was I had no idea there was a New Zealand goldrush. It’s hard enough to get to New Zealand now – but back then! I found that very interesting that there would be this temporary gold-fevered society about as far as possible as it was to get from anywhere else on Earth at a time when getting there would have been quite a challenge.
‘‘I was interested in what that would mean in terms of the whole types of personalities that found themselves there at that time. I also liked the idea of a kind of female-led western in an environment you don’t associate with westerns. Although, that’s become less true lately – there has been a bit of rash of Australian and New Zealand-based westerns [ Slow West, Good For Nothing, Tracker, The Rover]. However, broadly speaking, it’s still a relatively untouched area narratively.’’
As for the character of McCullen, Davenport says he always enjoys playing someone complex. ‘‘I’m a fan of an audience misdirect. I like playing characters who you think seem alright and then you go ‘oh, no, he’s awful’ – or vice-versa. Especially in a movie like this where, in terms of the experience of Alice’s character, there are constantly shifting sands all the time beneath her feet.
‘‘Certainly my CV would indicate I have little problem playing unsympathetic characters, but also ones where you might think one thing to begin with and then something else becomes the case. It’s a line that’s quite enjoyable to ride. I like messing around with that kind of balancing act.’’
Long-discussions with director Johnson, actually led to Davenport’s dialogue being cut.
‘‘I wanted him to be enigmatic. I wanted characters to be going to him, which I think makes things more interesting when he has these weird moments of vulnerability which are oddly inappropriate in their own way. I think inside, on some level, he’s so completely broken because of his own sense of grief and loss.
‘‘In the earlier versions [of the script], he was a lot more verbose and I wanted to be more interesting between the lines, rather than on the line.’’
Davenport, who apparently was considered to be too young to play Cal (the role which was eventually made famous by Billy Zane) in
1997’s Titanic and too good-looking to be Arthur Dent in 2005’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, got his first big film break (after achieving TV fame as Miles in the
1996 BBC legal drama This Life) in
1997 when he wrote to John Cleese asking to be a runner on A Fish Called Wanda semi-follow-up Fierce Creatures and ended up playing a zoo keeper.
Since then, he hasn’t looked back, although he is always keen to learn from those around him, he says, and was fascinated to work with the legendary O’Brien on The Stolen.
‘‘I’m of the age that The Rocky Horror Picture Show played a fairly meaningful part in my life. He’s not a young man anymore and in many ways it was rather thrilling and admirable watching him work long hours in not always entirely wonderful conditions. But he’s an old stager and I said lots of complimentary things to him because really I think he’s worthy of great compliments.
About to shoot action movie Doorman (‘‘I can’t tell you much more, or they may shoot me’’) in Canada with Jean Reno and Katie Holmes, Davenport says he would love to return to New Zealand one day with wife Michelle Gomez (best-known for playing Missy on Doctor Who) and son Harry.
‘‘I think when my son is a little older, we’ll repeat the visit and travel around a bit more. I’m a sucker for a breathtaking landscape and boy, you’ve got a lot of them.’’
❚ The Stolen‘ s sold-out New Zealand premiere will take place at Sumner’s Hollywood Cinema tonight from 7pm. The film opens in select cinemas nationwide from Thursday.