Cliff Curtis, star of hit NZ movie The Dark Horse, on landing the role of a lifetime

NEW Zealand actor Cliff Curtis, who has starred alongside some of Hollywood’s heavyweights, has found a way to turn racial stereotyping to his advantage.

Curtis gained 30kg for his role in The Dark Horse. Picture Supplied

You might not recognise his name, or even necessarily his face, but Cliff Curtis has appeared opposite some of the biggest names in the movie industry — Johnny Depp (Blow), Bruce Willis (Live Free Or Die Hard), Arnold Schwarzenegger (Collateral Damage) and Denzel Washington (Training Day) among them.

While most actors feel constricted by Hollywood’s tendency towards racial stereotyping, the Kiwi chameleon has turned it to his advantage — shifting seamlessly between Latino, Arab, African-American and even Indian characters (in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender.).

Curtis gained 30kg for his role in The Dark Horse. Picture Supplied

“I have found a little niche,’’ Curtis says of the breakthrough strategy, which has seen him play CIA agents, Mob bosses, and even Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar.

“You have to be a little bit picky about the roles and who you choose to work with. I had to turn down lots and lots of work.

“But I have found a way to turn (racial stereotyping) into a positive,” says the actor, who has been generating solid reviews for his performance as a middle-aged Chicano crime kingpin in the new Fox series Gang Related which premiered in the US in May.

As he had hoped, Curtis’ long-term international career plan has recently started to broaden out into roles that don’t even reference his Maori heritage.

Curtis in Collateral Damage. Picture: Supplied

Although he has been sworn to secrecy about his part in Kevin (Waterworld) Reynold’s Clavius, a depiction of events surrounding Christ’s missing body after the crucifixion, the 46-year-old actor does nothing to hose down conjecture that he might be playing Jesus himself.

“It’s a role I have been joking about wanting to play for most of my career,” Curtis admits.

Parallel to Curtis’ successful career in Hollywood, the actor has a hugely impressive list of credits in his homeland, appearing in many of the landmark Kiwi films of the last two decades, such as Once Were Warriors and Whale Rider, and producing a few more, including Boy and Eagle Vs Shark.

Curtis takes centre stage in The Dark Horse, the most recent hit from across the Tasman — a box office sensation in New Zealand and a strong performer on the international circuit.

The actor is again barely recognisable as real-life character Genesis Potini, a gifted, Gisborne-based chess player who struggled with bipolar disorder for most of his life.

Curtis lived the role for six months. Picture: Supplied

Curtis, who gained 30kg for the role, was initially reluctant to take on the job, fearing relatively inexperienced writer-director James Napier Robertson might succumb to the Mighty Ducks style possibilities of Potini’s story — the film focuses on his mentorship of a bunch of lost and disenfranchised youngsters that he knocks into shape for an important chess competition.

A powerful TV documentary changed the actor’s mind.

“When you see the real guy, he is so extraordinary, and such a mass of contradictions. He didn’t fit inside any box.

“In particular, I was fascinated by his mental illness and how he coped with it and how he never gave up. And how he had this ability to engage people. He would just draw people into his world and convince them to come along.

“He believed chess should played on park benches and in pubs and public places. He played chess with judges and lawyers and philosophers and mathematicians as well as gang members and homeless people.

Curtis and co-star James Rolleston. Picture: Supplied

“He loved the idea that on the board you didn’t have to speak the same language that is was a level playing field where a 12-year-old kid could wipe the floor with a master of commerce.”

Curtis was initially resistant to Roberston’s suggestion that he go method with the role, but in the end, it seemed like the right thing to do.

“At a certain point I just thought there is no other way to play the role except to commit to being (Potini). I wasn’t trying to imitate the guy, just trying to understand. It became my way of life for six months,’’ he says.

“I looked like a homeless guy a lot of the time.

Curtis in the real-life role of Genesis Potini. Picture: Supplied

“It was a bit odd. I had to maintain the other aspects of my life while I was negotiating it, because I have got children, and they have to live with me as that character.”

During the two and a half months of filming, Curtis wore a dental appliance that made it look as though he had lost his front teeth.

“My wife wasn’t impressed — she got up in the morning to this mountainous guy with a very gummy grin.”

> SEEThe Dark Horse - opens Thursday (November 20)