Another famous actor for Shortland Street
Shortland Street continues its tradition of
casting well-known New Zealanders this week (
hot on the heels of Rena Owen ) with the arrival
veteran actor George Henare to play Roimata's (Shavaughn Ruakere)
father, well-respected doctor, Henare Ngatai.
Henare has appeared on stage, film, and television, and has been
heard on radio and talking book since the 1970's.
In 1998 he was awarded an OBE for services to theatre; two decades
later Henare was made an Arts Foundation laureate and received Te
Waka Toi, Te Tohu Toi Ke Award for his outstanding contribution to
Maori theatre.
His latest television roles include playing judge Justice Eddie
Durie in tele-movie docu-drama Stolen: The Baby Kahu Story, and Lee
Kaa in Margaret Mahy fantasy series Kaitangata Twitch, a role which
won him a Qantas award for best actor in 2010.
"Acting has always been a passion for me and I have been very
privileged to be able to maintain it as a career for such a long
time," he says.
He was most recently seen in the TV One feature Waitangi: What
Really Happened.
Despite his years of television experience, Henare says the pace of
how
Shortland Street is filmed has been phenomenal
to deal with.
"I have found the way they film
Shortland Street
to be a breath of fresh air," he says. "Instead of doing the same
scene over and over again from thousands of angles and
perspectives, you have finished one scene a moved onto the next
before you even have a chance to comprehend that you are working! I
had to spend four hours in the make-up chair before even getting
onto set on the Waitangi feature, so to have a ten minute make-up
call this time around was fantastic."
Henare says his character, Dr Henare Ngatai was thoroughly
enjoyable to play, because of the environment he was working in,
and the people he was working with.
"I had most of my scenes with Shavaughn and Ben Mitchell (TK
Samuels) and they were both very talented young actors," he says.
"My character is a likeable man whose daughter is the apple of his
eye, so he was lovely character to play."
Henare says he was given a strangely coincidental sign that he was
destined to play this character - his mother's maiden name is
Ngatai and his father is a Henare, so the name was a combination of
both his parents.
"It seemed very meaningful that the character was (coincidentally)
named after my parents," he says. "I took it as a sign that this
was a role for me."
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