Son of Jake

Plucked from obscurity to star in the most eagerly expected New Zealand film in some time, Clint Erurera had his work cut out. He talks to RUSSELL BAILLIE about surviving the Heke clan.

Not bad going, eh? Lucky as. Your first film acting job is a key role in the sequel to the biggest New Zealand film ever.

You might be remembered forever in this country for putting a face to another of the Heke family - the clan whose upheavals gripped a nation in Once Were Warriors and may do it again in What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?.

Though your character, Sonny Heke, the second of Jake and Beth's three boys, was in Alan Duff's original novels, he didn't figure in Warriors the film. Says Broken Hearted director Ian Mune: "Although he was in both books, filmgoers will have to assume that he was being raised by his grandparents or something."

Playing this new son of Jake the Muss is Clint Eruera. That's his doleful face underneath Temuera Morrison's wild-eyed visage on the Broken Hearted poster.

But while the main theme of Broken Hearted sings Jake's redemption song, it's Sonny we're rooting for. He's on a mission to avenge the gang slaying of his older brother, Nig, having hooked up with Nig's girl, Tania, and persuading his hapless mate, Mookie, it's the right thing to do.

That's quite a lot of movie - especially with the expectations that come with this second cinematic flick through the Heke family album - to have resting on Eruera's broad but inexperienced shoulders.

Doesn't he know it? Sitting in the lounge of his Takapuna flat you sense that, even months after his work was finished on the film, he's still feeling the pressure.

He talks softly and hesitantly, but his frequent deep laugh hits the other end of the decibel scale. In its volume you can hear the voice that once helped to win him a Lions Club national young speechmaker contest, earning him a trip to England.

And a voice which undoubtedly helped when it came to a theatre studies course at Northland Polytechnic in his home town, Whangarei.

But despite those achievements, he was no angel as a teenager. It seems he was kicked out of one Whangarei high school in colourful circumstances he'd rather not go into, but jokes that he managed to become a prefect at another.

And there were some other formative influences. Like all the time he spent at his local marae - he's Ngapuhi - while growing up, though he laughs at my notion that with its ritual and oratory, the marae might have stirred something of an performance bug. More a lesson in shutting up and listening, he quips. Oh, and helping with the dishes.

When Broken Hearted casting directors Don Selwyn and Ruth Kaupua started their search for Sonny, Eruera got lucky. Initially told he was too late to try out when he went to drop off a friend at the auditions, he got a phone call a few days later.

Mune again: "Then Clint Eruera turned up at an audition and I looked at him and thought, 'Yeah, he's a good-looking boy. He's very sensitive and truthful,' which are two characteristics essential for Sonny. Then I took the videotape home and had a look at it and suddenly my interest level went through the roof. I thought, 'He was good at the audition, but he's fantastic on screen.' The camera just eats him up."

A month or so later Eruera had the part.

He'd already shifted to Auckland and found work at a suit-hire firm. He laughs at the memory of the job which required a little acting, like keeping a straight face as the about-to-be-hitched squabbled over which bowtie.

But as for the new job - scared?

"Yeah, it was scary."

Yes, like everyone he'd seen Warriors. And he's known some folks who resembled the Hekes.

"Seen it before, eh? It happens everywhere. A great story. It had everything that everybody said it had."

But, like author Duff, Eruera doesn't think of Broken Hearted as a sequel to Warriors: "No, two different movies. I didn't even think about Once Were Warriors."

Then came the job of finding Sonny, the character. Hard work, he says. The two weeks of rehearsal before the eight-week shoot late last year were invaluable. So was putting on his character's ever-present leather jacket.

"Yeah, well, when I woke up in the morning I couldn't find Sonny in my PJs," he chuckles.

Then came the first days in front of the camera. A different sort of acting from what he'd done before. Less is more. Not acting so much as reacting.

Yes, it was a little intimidating finding himself on the set opposite so many years of screen and stage experience. Not only Morrison and Rena Owen reviving their parts, but Nancy Brunning (as Tania), Rawiri Paratene, Pete Smith ...

"Yeah, you felt that experience. That presence."

He did have some support in the form of Tammy Davis, the polytech classmate he originally dropped off at the audition. Davis got the part of Sonny's sidekick, Mookie.

Then there was the physical stuff.

"Look like it hurt?" he asks with a broad grin.

Yeah.

"As long as it looks like it hurt. Did it hurt me? No, it was just selling. I felt good about that."

It's already provided a launching pad for Clint Eruera, professional actor. He's got a part - the flipside of Sonny, he says - and started filming in the upcoming television series The Jacksons.

Asked whose career he'd perhaps like to emulate, he comes back with "Kiri Te Kanawa" and a hearty chuckle.

But he expresses admiration for both Morrison and Cliff Curtis, whose screen careers have headed offshore after Warriors gave them an international profile.

He says Broken Hearted has taught him so much about acting: "To be truthful to yourself. To really cherish and care for the craft."

Mune gave him a dressing-down or two for being so self-critical on set, he says. Got to work on that.

We talk about him first seeing himself on the big screen in a rough cut of the film - he'll first see the completed movie at the premiere with his parents, who are flying back from Sydney for the occasion - and Eruera does a good impersonation of someone watching a horror movie through his hands.

"But afterwards I thought, 'Cool. The story's there. It's watchable.' That's the main thing.

"I really don't know how it's going to do but I can say this is a good New Zealand film. It's worth watching. It's worth $10. It's worth showing because it's going to teach someone."

Interview over, Eruera looks relieved. As we part company he asks one thing of how it's to be written up: "Keep it down to earth."

Will do.

Who: Clint Erurera

What: What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?

Where: Cinemas nationwide

When: From Thursday, May 27