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From Sunday Star Times 17 February, 2002 - Tony Potter A ´FORTUNATE LIFE´ MEETS A TRAGIC END Kevin Smith was that rare amalgam - a hunk who could act, or as those who appreciated his talents would probably put it, an actor who was a hunk. As for Smith, he hated the term. After a part in the film "Desperate Remedies," in which he displayed a considerable amount of flesh, he told the Sunday Star Times: "It´s funny, the reviews have started to come out and I get a little ****** off. If I see the word ´hunky´ once more, or ´uses his pecs to good effect´...it´s just like ´Hey, I was acting here´. I don´t live my life like this. I wasn´t playing myself. I find that annoying." In an interview for Pavement magazine, the man who was world famous for his roles in Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules, said: "Masculinity is a double-edged sword sometimes. It´s like greatness. Some men are born masculine; some men have masculinity thrust upon them. It just so happens that I have the latter." Smith was well aware of the dangers of type-casting. "I´ve pursued it as well and you always run the danger of being elevated for that very reason. But eventually, it´ll narrow the field of things that people will consider for you." Born in Auckland on March 19, 1963, but Timaru-raised, Smith bummed around the South Island doing labouring jobs in wool stores and hay sheds in between a stop-start university career. In the early ´80s as a bearded, long-haired man he was a member of what the Star Times called "the semi-legendary" Christchurch post-punk band Say Yes to Apes. He got his start in the theatre as an understudy to former Peking Man frontman pat Urlich in the New Zealand production of "Are You Lonesome Tonight: the Elvis Presley Story," and for a while he would put down as his occupation "Elvis impersonator". He also got work as a lowly extra on TV´s "McPall and Gadsby". "That was a cool thing," he told The Press. " would get calls in the afternoon saying they needed an extra in the pub scene. There was real cold beer in those glasses. I often ended up three-parts cut." The man who was an avid trainer at Clive Green´s Auckland gym really hit the local headlines when he played "a female fantasy" in "Ladies Night", a play about male strippers. Later "Shortland St." beckoned, where his role was Jed Leary, a muscle-bound aerobics instructor. There was also a lot of comedy, such as "Away Laughing" on TV3. "Comedy is one of the tools you need", he told the Star Times, and there was stand-up work with Mike King. But when he was 27 he had what he described as "my vision". It occurred at the old Mercury Theatre. "Raymond Hawthorne said to me ´How old are ya?´ I said ´I´m 27´. He said ´What are you doing?´ And at and time I was doing mainly stand-up comedy and theatre sports. Then there´s a pause and he says, ´You´ve got 10 years left as a leading man. Don´t (expletive) around´." It led to what he later described as his second big break - the first was being hired by Elric Hooper, artistic director at the Court Theatre, Christchurch, for "Europe". It came when Michael Hurst chose him to play the lead in Shakespeare´s "Othello" at Auckland´s Watershed Theatre, which Smith described as a "to die for role". It came close on the heels of more television exposure in the Channel 2 drama "Marlin Bay", a role which earned him a best supporting actor award at the 1995 New Zealand Film and Television Awards. Smith´s big break, the one that made him a famous face on TV screens the world over, came in 1995 when he scored the part of Greek god Ares in Xena: Warrior princess and later appeared in the same role in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. It was, he told Pavement, "nice, because you don´t bring up the normal laws of logic and there are no boundaries. You´re a Greek god, so your behaviour isn´t dictated by the normal ways of most people, which is fun." Under his contract, Smith was forbidden from cutting his shoulder-length hair and some of his greying locks were kept meticulously dyed by the make-up department. But after four years he realised the part was coming to an end - "once you get into that comfort zone all sorts of alarm bells should be sounding" - and he took time off Hercules to star in a New Zealand movie "Channelling Baby (1999). It was, he said, the third "really important" thing that happened to him as an actor. It "gave me permission to access certain things as a performer. Some scientist once said ´I stand so tall because I stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before me´. Each thing I do stems from things that people have given me in the past. And doing "Channelling Baby" is one of those things that I´ll always be proud of. It was an opportunity to be seen in a different light after years of playing the bad boy, the rogue and the total testosterone of series like "Lawless"." Smith had just completed filming in China when he died. He was looking forward to filming "A Man of War", starring Bruce Willis, which starts shooting in Hawaii next month. It could have been his biggest break. In a 1999 interview, Smith said: "I didn´t come into acting until my mid-20s and I´ve been extremely fortunate. That´s something that isn´t lost to me every day of my life, how fortunate I´ve been. That´s why it seems churlish to complain about reductive comments in reviews."
