New roles for Owen

Rena Owen

Actress Rena Owen is working on her own film project.

Owen, who played battered but unbowed Beth Heke in the award-winning 1995 movie Once Were Warriors to Temuera Morrison's fearsome Jake the Muss, has been working on a movie script for Heretaunga Pat Baker's 1975 work Behind the Tattooed Face.

Owen said it would be up to eight years before the movie reached the screen.

"We need US$30 million (NZ$43 million)."

Getting funding for the project was one of the reasons Owen now lives in Los Angeles but despite the film's challenges, she remained confident.

"This was the first historical novel written by a Maori. Film makers have tried to make it every decade [since it was written]."

As well as a slew of lower budget and independent films, Owen has also been very visible as Senator Nee Alavar in Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith and as Taun We in Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones, also featuring Morrison as bounty hunter Jango Fett.

Her latest role is as a Courtney Love-type "outrageous rock and roll" character in the independent production The Horrible Flowers.

- NZPA