He had brought along a copy of his very long CV: Uncountable plays, TV dramas, and films; his many presenting gigs (Art of the Architect, Captain's Log, fishing shows, Civil Defence ads.) He had printed this CV out for me, but also, he said, to remind himself of what he's done, because he forgets and he's sure most of the people who have seen him in productions have long forgotten too. He proved to be useless at promoting himself so I'd better help him out a bit.
For some reason - entirely forgotten after five minutes - I had an idea that he was one of those slick and shiny actors, all veneer and brio. On his CV his weight, 94kg, had been crossed out, with a biro, and replaced with his new, sleeker weight of 87kg. That crossing out made me laugh. It was the very opposite of slick and shiny. And: Was he fat? "I was. I've lost 15kg over the past year because I was getting quite portly. I wasn't getting much work and I realised I was pretty fat."
He is always worried about not getting work, despite that CV; I'm fairly sure he was never fat. But these are the usual worries of the jobbing actor and he worries more than most because that is his nature: Nervy and given to occasions of melancholia and to fretting.
The moment I arrived he told me that nerves run in his family and that he has passed these down to two of his three kids. He had an uncle who had such terrible nerves "he couldn't even leave the house. So there's something that sort of occurs in the bloodlines, somehow". He has suffered from this all of his life and, about theatre, he said: "I used to think that it would get easier but it's quite the reverse."
He grew up in a nervy sort of situation, in Riccarton, the youngest child of three, with parents who never spoke to each other - except to argue, about money, or the lack of it. His father ran a little battery company and took his meals at either the officer's club or the golf club and kept a fancy woman, Nancy, up the road. His mother had her own interests including vegetarianism. She made her own bread - his father called it granite loaf - from which she made school lunches which got hidden in lockers; they were far too embarrassing to eat. She was an enthusiastic member of a spiritual movement, the Saint Germain Foundation, which eschews the wearing of red and black and believes in "ascended masters". She was "herbal and earthy" and adventurous. She would ford rivers in her little old car, patting it along the way: "Good little car!"
They were both delightful and he adored them but felt guilty about their unhappiness and tried to be the peace maker. He was a strange little boy. His mother wanted him to be a gentle soul. She dressed him in paisley and Fair Isle jumpers and he was: "A bit soft and insipid, really." It's not a bad thing to want your boy to be gentle, I said. He said: "No. But at the time it was weird. And I was a sort of odd child, prone to crying at all sorts of things and in later life I learned that I had to make my own way. You know, the world is tougher than that and I had to grow some harder shell." This might be why he took up hunting and fishing, to prove that he wasn't that soft little paisley-wearing boy. "It may have been originally. But it's not any more. I don't hunt big game! I hunt ducks and I take them home and feed the family."
He has been married to Susan, a former ballet dancer and now a choreographer for Les Mills, for 30 years and thank goodness. She is the stable one, he said.
That he has suffered so badly from his nerves seems really rotten luck but it makes life interesting, I suppose. It makes him interesting, certainly. He has found a way (in addition to being married to Susan) to cope with his nerves. He uses a technique called Emotional Freedom Technique which involves "tapping out meridians on the body". He said, amiably, in response to my scepticism that, oh well, it it works for him.
I'm sure he's not the only actor who has bad nerves and a peculiar early life and who resorts to what I would call weird stuff to deal with it. The difference is that he told me about his weird stuff and I liked him very much for the telling. He said, at one stage: "God! What are we going through all of this shit for!" But he wasn't at all irritated; he may have felt a bit unpeeled which is one of the perils of owning up to a funny old life. And I liked him, too, for being willing to reveal himself in all of his fragility and nerviness and uncertainty. He is a surprising character for all those reasons and also because he appears, or so I thought before meeting him, to be the very opposite sort of character. He comes across as supremely confident, and so a bit arrogant, perhaps. I thought he might be one of those actors who thought a lot of himself. Now I wish that he could manage to think that he's all right, really, more often, because he is. It can't be easy being him.
I did wonder why people with nerves go into acting and he said: "I don't know! Part of it is that if you don't do it ... if you don't confront the issue, that gets bigger than you and it starts to affect other parts of your life as well. So it's always like I've got to keep doing it ... It's so Lutheran, isn't it?"
Another thing about interviewing actors, you're never quite sure whether they're acting or not. I did ask. "Oh no!" he said. "This is all I am. This is me. Flaky and weird and all over the place!"
Peter Elliott: A Funny Old Life. The only hitch would be that because he told me so much, not just about himself, but about certain named swines he has met along the way - including in the acting business - that the swines might get their lawyers to write letters. I've interviewed a lot of actors and they never do this. They're too canny; it's a small town; they might never work again. Also, ego is involved. Actors never get the boot, or never admit to getting the boot. They leave things to go on to bigger and brighter things. He is, obviously, an actor so when I asked if he'd got the boot from Shortland Street he said: "No. We came to a termination of contract. Which I wasn't happy about. Which is tantamount to the same thing!" Anyway, he was terribly upset and "deeply betrayed" and he wouldn't know how to pretend that he was anything else. No work came in and he nearly lost the family home and he got heart palpitations and thought he was dying and you can see why. When he was finally diagnosed as having depression it came as a strange relief.
I did wonder whether he'd been given the boot because he might be capable of being stroppy and difficult. He did change lines he didn't like and he objected to stupid storylines but he said - this was the only time he was remotely stroppy with me - that, "well, if you think looking after the character that you've been portraying on television for four years and having some sort of care for that character is difficult, then I guess I was difficult."
He has long been in a stew about the portrayal of men on Shortland Street and what he regards as a certain production company's portrayal of men in general. "It really gets up my funnel. There is no single role model that says: 'This is the way to behave as a man.' They're all thick, or dangerous, or violent or leaving."
I was beginning to see why I'd formed a skew-whiff idea about him. On paper he can sound cranky and difficult. It's easy to make him sound aggrieved. He isn't really. He's more amazed at the strange things that happen in the world and he's brutally honest - but mostly about and with himself.
He told me a story about an incredibly awful actress - "now there's a character who's hard to work with" - who made sure he could never get into frame by deliberately upstaging him in every scene including finally draping herself about a bannister: "Like Isadora Duncan!" They had got off to a less than happy start. Their first meeting was on a set, in a bed, for a sex scene. He had never done a sex scene before - "I'd done lying around" - and there are those nerves. He asked if she wanted to run the lines and she said: 'Oh, no darling. That's fine.' He said he was a bit nervous and she said: 'Oh, it'll be fine.' So he asked if she'd mind if he started kissing her, as the script required. "And she leans over and says: 'Are you strapped?' I said: 'Eh?' She said: 'Are you strapped?' I said: 'No, I'm not strapped. Are you strapped?' And she said: 'Oh, how stupid. What are you talking about?' Then [to the cameraman]: 'Is he strapped?'"
He finally twigged and said: "Pointing down: 'Oh! You mean! Jesus Christ! No! Don't worry! Promise! Nothing's going to happen!' And she looked at me and went: 'Oh really?' Like I'd just f***en insulted the shit out of her! And I wasn't insulting the poor woman! I was just trying to survive!"
I said, aggrieved: "What a bitch!" He said, amazed: "It was weird, man. It was bizarre."
I'll say! He really should write that memoir.
• A Doll's House is at the Maidment Theatre until May 23.
