‘Still that Southland boy’ as actor moves into film
In this series, Mary-Jo Tohill tracks down Southlanders who spent time in the limelight to see where they are now and what lessons they learnt on the road to stardom.
Actor George Mason has broken onto the big screen with the New Zealand film Daffodils.
Having wrapped filming on the Australian soap Home and Away
in February, in which he had played Martin ‘‘Ash’’ Ashford, Invercargill-born Mason has been making a transition from the small screen to film.
He stars in the musical feature film Daffodils.
‘‘I’ve been used to doing TV, which has such a fast turnaround. Film is a different pace,’’ he says.
The film is based on a stage play by Rochelle Bright and was released in March.
Mason plays Eric, alongside singer Kimbra and actress Rose McIver from The Lovely Bones, the supernatural drama film directed by Sir Peter Jackson in 2009. McIver plays his love interest, Rose.
‘‘After Daffodils I had a period of the unknown, but it is all starting to work out nicely,’’ Mason says.
To get more experience and exposure, he went to Los Angeles. ‘‘It’s a big scary place, but it’s a cool place to really focus on your acting.’’
He has been working on his American accents and improvisation. ‘‘I think if the right thing comes up it will be because I’m right for it.’’
What he enjoyed about Los Angeles was the diversity of different races, cultures and sexualities now getting the mainstream roles that they would not have been considered for in the past. ‘‘It’s more now
than ever. It used to be that you were judged by what you looked like, but that diversity is real now.’’
Despite his stint as an underwear model for Bonds, he is determined ‘‘not to be just a pretty white boy from the beach’’.
Now 27, Mason has been acting since he was 13, when he secured his first role in the feature film 50 Ways of Saying Fabulous.
After deciding to pursue acting full time, Mason played Regan Ames in Shortland Street
in 2011, before making appearances in Tangiwai: A Love Story, Top of the Lake and 3 Mile Limit.
In 2013, Mason starred as Ted Keegan in the fifth season of Go Girls and had a supporting role in crime drama The Blue Rose.
‘‘I’d love to live at Riverton. I love the surfing.’’ George Mason
The following year, he joined the cast of Home and Away.
To be an actor was to live with uncertainty, he said.
‘‘If I don’t have enough money I’m happy to do something else.’’
He has labouring and nannying on his resume.
‘‘One day hopefully I’ll be able to pick and choose jobs, but I’m not there yet.’’
His roots are still firmly in Southland. ‘‘I’m still that Southland boy – it would not be possible to be anything else. But I’ve gone out and had a look around.’’
He and his wife, French model Manon Buchalet, love coming home to New Zealand.
‘‘I’d love to live at Riverton. I love the surfing. It’s great to be somewhere where there’s far less people in the water.’’