Nathaniel Lees
Occupation: Actor, Director, Tutor
Hometown: Wellington (New Zealand), Vailoa (Upolu, Samoa), and soon to be Satupaitea (Savai’i, Samoa).
Now living: Wellington, New Zealand.
Started acting: When I was about six or seven.
Favourite group: Earth, Wind and Fire
Favourite artist: Gauguin and Barry White.
Favourite song: That’s hard. I’m working on a radio piece and the song that comes to mind is “Mua O” by my grandfather, Faanana Grey.
Favourite book: It changes. Today it’s Grotowski - the teaching of Grotowski.
Favourite Pacific food: My mother’s chow mein.
Favourite tradition: Every year, the weekend before Christmas, my family gets together for a ‘kids party’. We give our presents to the kids and we come together as a family, focused on our children and being together as a family.
Brief history
Nathaniel Lees is an award-winning actor, credited with major performances on both screen and stage.
The Samoan New Zealander, best known for his role as Captain Mifune in The Matrix trilogy and his role as “Uglúk” in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, also featured in Sione’s Wedding, Number 2, 30 Days of Night and The Tattooist.
Nathaniel has also had roles on the TV series Young Hercules, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess, The Lost World, The Legend of William Tell, the mini-series Emma: Queen of the South Seas, and Power Rangers: Jungle Fury.
He is currently Senior Acting Tutor for Stage and Screen role at Toi Whakaari and is filming Under the Mountain.
Nathaniel talks to Pacific Starmap…
How did you get started in the arts?
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What’s kept you motivated to keep going?
The enjoyment of exploring - of finding things out, looking at what we do. Exploring plays are a big part of it.
If I didn’t enjoy it, if I didn’t find it stimulating, then I would stop.
Working at Toi Whakaari is great, with students exploring and eager to learn. Being a part of that motivates me as well; seeing people working on themselves, improving.
What have you found hard in the industry?
Making a living isn’t such an issue for me as I have worked in different areas, but through the years I have seen it has been difficult for a lot of people.
It’s difficult on relationships ’cause you do spend a lot of time apart - I had to leave my eldest daughter for two months when she was two months old, and when I came back it took a while for us to get to know each other again.
That kind of thing hurts me, hurts her, hurts us, now we don’t even think about it ’cause we have such a good relationship, but when I look back it’s moments like that which are hard, but you have to do them - it’s part of the work.
What’s the best perk of the industry?
I’ve travelled a lot because of what I do, and I don’t know if I would’ve travelled to all of those countries if I wasn’t doing what I was doing, so I guess that is the most obvious perk.
But then there is another way to look at this - I have met some incredible people, incredibly creative people.
I am not sure if I would have had that opportunity if I wasn’t doing what I was doing; actually I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have met those extraordinary artists, film-makers, dancers - incredibly talented and creative people.
What about the money?
Because I enjoy theatre and my passion is for theatre - that is what I do most of. And in theatre in Aotearoa New Zealand, there is not a lot of money to support it, which I find to be a shame, so I can do one day on a movie and it’s the same as almost a whole month of rehearsal for theatre. In saying that, my films and my television subsidise my theatre.
My theatre is my passion - it’s where I learnt my craft - it’s where I learnt what I do. It took me years to be able to earn enough to pay the rent, to pay the power bill, but at the same time I was learning.
It’s not an overnight success - you get a piece on Shortland Street, all of a sudden you think you’ve made it? Understand the craft before you think you’ve made it as an actor.
Who were your strongest influences?
George Henare to start with - he’s a great man, a great actor.
In the journey that I’ve taken to get where I am, there hasn’t really been any specific person apart from George when I first wanted to know how he was doing what he was doing, that kicked me off.
Everybody that I’ve seen, directors that I’ve worked with, actors that I’ve worked with, I take something from all of them. I watch how they work, I listen to what they say - and if it works for me, then I keep that bit.
If it doesn’t work - I try and make it work because it’s their vision - but if it turns something else in me, then I put that aside and I keep moving.
I get something from everyone that I work with, even if it’s “Oh my goodness I don’t want to work with that person ever again,” then at least I learnt that. Everyone I work with is an influence on me.
Don’t disregard anyone just because you don’t like them. You may learn something from them.
What are you working on at the moment?
I’ve just taken on the Senior Acting Tutor for Stage and Screen role at Toi Whakaari.
My passion has always been for theatre, and to be able to pass on what I’ve learned over the last 30 years to people with either the same passion or with a spark of that passion, has always been something that I’ve aspired to for a while.
In my directing I see people light up when something happens, or things occur to them, or when they’re doing a role that they understand.
At Toi Whakaari, my role is to help teach them how to discover themselves, how to discover what’s inside them - whether you like it or not, it’s in there - how to fan it, how to find it, use it, and then put it away again safely.
That’s how I see what I do; that’s how my role as I see it at Toi Whakaari is to take us along that way.
I am still able to do films and outside projects, because it’s important that the students at Toi Whakaari see that their tutors can relate to the real world - that I’m out there working, and I come back and what they’re learning at Toi Whakaari directly relates to their learning experience.
Part of what I do at Toi Whakaari is to keep the students in touch with the industry - the people out there, the real world.
What’s your next big step?
I will work at Toi Whakaari for as long as I feel that I can give something. But again my theatre and my other work may call me to another time.
Two or three years down the track I may be working somewhere else, but my passion will still be there and my feeling for what I do will still be there, so keep an eye on a space near you…
Ask this month’s featured Champion, Nathaniel Lees, a question about getting ahead in the arts.
PACIFIC STARMAP CHAMPIONS:
Albert Wendt | Brooke Fraser | Nathaniel Lees | Neil Ieremia
