Guy Pearce: Australian actor on his career and role in 'The Convert'

Named by IndieWire as one of the best actors to have never received an Academy Award nomination, Guy Pearce has had quite the prolific career.  

The Aussie actor has stared in over 400 episodes of Neighbours, L.A. Confidential, Memento, and The Time Machine, but his breakout role was in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert back in 1994.  

He’s returning to kiwi cinemas in a week’s time with The Convert, the third collaboration between director Lee Tamahori and producer Robin Scholes. 

The film is a historical drama, depicting pre-colonial Aotearoa New Zealand and Māori Culture. A lay preacher arrives at a British settlement in 1830s New Zealand, his violent past is drawn in to question and his faith is put to the test as he finds himself caught in the middle of a bloody conflict between Māori tribes.  

Pearce plays preacher Thomas Munro, telling Newstalk ZB’s Jack Tame that he found the script very raw, moving, and fascinating. 

“It was just very emotional, and I could really see myself as that character.” 

The film is set in a New Zealand context, but the content translates to an international audience, Pearce telling Tame that no matter what the narrative is the idea of a white colonial man taking over or delving into indigenous culture is something that people in many countries can relate to.  

The Convert is more than a two-dimensional depiction of colonialism, director Lee Tamahori aiming to take that narrative and make more of a human story, centring connection and compassion regardless of culture, history, and background. 

For Pearce, the crux of the story was his character’s development. 

“We’re finding a character who’s been traumatised and is looking to find himself and in, in discovering this other culture, he is, he is allowed to then find himself and he therefore owes this other culture.” 

“His life was the crux of the story in a way,” he told Tame. “Certainly for me, selfishly, it was the crux of the story.” 

This project wasn’t the first time Pearce met Tamahori, but it was the first project they’d worked on together, and Pearce said it was beyond his expectations. 

“To witness that wonderful, brilliant intelligence, inspirational kind of outlook that he has, to witness that on a daily level and to be a part of it, and to, you know, he’s so joyful.” 

“He’s got such a beautiful kind of energy, and an inspiring quality that you just want to be around him.” 

Pearce has had an extensive career, and his success means that he can now be discerning in the projects he chooses to be involved in. 

“I just do the things that move me, you know. I’ve always done that.” 

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