“It’s often hard to articulate what I either get out of something or what journey I’ve had to go through to portray a character,”Guy Pearcerecently told MovieWeb about his character in the mind-bending new historical drama,The Convert.The film finds Pearce playing minister Thomas Munro, a man who relocates to New Zealand to build a new life and spread the good word. He’s soon pulled into the racial tensions swirling about in 1830. Specifically, between the British and the Māori people.
“I think the trauma that the character had experienced even prior to the start of the story was the main thing that I was carrying through this story, for me personally, as I was working,” Pearce said of how he felt the character stretched him in director Lee Tamahori’s (Once Were Warriors) compelling film. “Obviously, the character gets to express that when he tells the story of the harrowing military attack that’s gone wrong [in the past] and he killed innocent people in a school.That was challenging to sort of hold on to.”
How Guy Pearce Has Changed as an Actor
The Convert
A lay preacher’s violent past is drawn into question and his faith tested as he becomes caught up in a bloody war between Maori tribes after arriving at a British settlement in the 1830s.
The Convertis a good example of how, over time, Pearce has adjusted the way he approaches acting. “In a way, as I get older, I’m better at being able to just put that over there, especially when I’m not shooting, and to be able to access it,” Pearce shared about how he handled the emotional complexities of Munro, who bottled up his past traumas, only to find himself having to confront them. He added:
“The challenge for something like that probably would have been even greater for me 20 years ago. Because I would have felt I had to… just have to hang on to it.I learned years ago that that actually is really exhausting. It’s actually not that helpful. Because by the time I get to do it in front of the camera, I’ve sort of lost my footing with it a bit; so that’s the skill, I suppose, as an actor, the challenge of that."
“I feel like I’m getting better, as time goes on, at trusting that I can put it down when the camera’s not rolling, then I can pick it back up again and carry on with it,” added Pearce.
Guy Pearce on His New Historical Epic The Convert & A Sequel to Priscilla Queen of the Desert
Guy Pearce spoke with us about playing a preacher among warring Māori tribes in early 19th-century New Zealand in The Convert.
On Working with Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne
Written by Tamahori, Michael Bennett, and Shane Danielsen,The Convertalso stars Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne (Hunt for the Wilderpeople) in a soul-stirring, award-worthy performance as Rangimai, a young Indigenous woman whose husband is murdered shortly after Munro’s arrival in a colonized region.
Pearce said he was intrigued with his young costar from the get-go. “Working with Tioreore, the young girl who, even though I’m witnessing her trauma in the story,she herself, in real life, had such joy and blissful, kind of cheeky wonder about her,” said. “It was very easy for us to become playful when the camera wasn’t rolling, but both to slip back into it straight away.” He also noted, smiling about her youthful confidence:
“I thought, ‘This girl is very young, and yet she can switch in and out [of character] far better than I can. I learned a lot from her. She said to me, ‘So, you’ve done a lot of movies, eh?’ And I went. ‘Yeah, I’ve done a lot.’ And she went, ‘So, I guess I’m gonna learn something from you then, am I?’ And I went, ‘No, I don’t reckon… you may not.’ She said, ‘Nah, probably not… you might learn something from me.’"
“I just loved her straight away,” said Pearce. “She had this great confidence, but cheeky kind of attitude.”
The Convert Review: Guy Pearce Is a Force in Gripping but Lengthy Historical Drama
The sweeping, thought-provoking 19th-century saga dazzles the eyes and senses but is short on character development.
Guy Pearce Compares The Convert to Today’s Wartime Atrocities
The Convertis revealing in so many ways, from its stunning New Zealand locale to the serious subject of race, conflict, and violence. Pearce sees parallels to all the film’s 19th-century challenges in the world today.:
“You’ve only got to find a video clip of a soldier who’s sent to do something particular and in the midst of it, goes, ‘What we’re doing is wrong. I cannot handle what I’m doing. Children are dying and we’re responsible for it.' I’m surprised on one level that there are more people who feel that way… and [they] have that foresight to speak up.”
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“For a lot of soldiers, particularly, they’re trained to sort of function and cut off emotionally from a situation, but you know, for a lot of people they can’t, and they won’t,” Pearce added. “We’re seeing stuff every day. I mean, there’s been wars going on for a long time, but particularlyat the moment, there is just an absolutely harrowing injustice when it comes to innocent lives being lost.”
Catch Guy Pearce’s commanding performance inThe Convert,currently showing in theaters. You can also rent or buy it on digital platforms like YouTube, Google Play, Fandango at Home, and Apple TV, and Prime Video through the link below:
