Interviews
PLAYING THE BAD GUY
May 7, 2005
Dominion Post
IN THE big budget epic about the Crusades, Kingdom of Heaven, which opened this week, New Zealander Marton Csokas has one of the best parts -- he's the bad guy.
With the scary swagger and arrogance of a seasoned pub brawler, Csokas dominates his first scene in a confrontation with the hero Balian the blacksmith, played by Hollywood heart-throb Orlando Bloom.
Anyone who remembers the 38-year-old's first role as the nerdy Dr Leonard Dodds in Shortland Street 10 years ago won't recognise him now.
With a beard, long flowing hair, a battle-worn complexion and rarely out of his bulky Weta-made chainmail, Csokas is completely convincing as 12th century knight Guy de Lusignan.
It's Csokas' biggest Hollywood role to date - and with three other major films due for release this year, including one where he co-stars with Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron - in just four years overseas, the New Zealand Drama School graduate has become one of our most successful movie stars.
Csokas' had a variety of roles, including his brief appearance as good elf Celeborn in The Lord of the Rings, but in other high profile Hollywood movies xXx and The Bourne Supremacy, he's played ruthless bad guys. So does Csokas like being a villain?
"Speaking for myself I do enjoy playing the villain," he says from New York, where he's at a Kingdom of Heaven premiere.
"In Guy de Lusignan there are psychological aspects of the character that are dark and then more obvious. But then no one is completely bad. Just as the hero is often not entirely good. If I play a so-called good character, I like to go exploring other aspects as well. The good thing about de Lusignan, I was able to do that."
Csokas spent five months filming Kingdom of Heaven with Ridley Scott, best known for Gladiator and Alien. Much of it was shot in Spain and Morocco.
Spain provided challenges, some unexpected. Csokas says one was Spain's social life.
"There were temptations. The challenge there was not to party 24 hours a day and still be able to go to work," he says laughing.
In Morocco the film was shot around the seaside town Essaouira, which in the 60s was a popular hippie hangout after Jimi Hendrix spent time there.
"It was a challenge. Just lots and lots of dust, which could be very uncomfortable when you're working."
But he also had a lot of fun, he says, "riding horses, sword fighting and a good, solid script".
Scott, known for big-scale films and to an almost obsessional devotion to their visual aspects, impressed Csokas.
"He treated it a little bit like a military operation. There was his technical expertise. He really does know his stuff, he uses people who are very good at what they do and he knows what all the departments are doing. So if there's security involved (say in a scene) going over a bridge, he'll come along and crack the whip. But he was always open to discussions of any kind."
Csokas says Scott was open to suggestions from actors. Some he took up, others he rejected.
"He'd then say `Okay, but let's try it my way'. But he was very fair in this way, that's an admirable trait in a director.
"There was also a time there - when you're doing a lot of work by yourself - that I was never sure how it would all end up. It wasn't all signed and sealed."
Like many of Kingdom of Heaven's cast, which includes Jeremy Irons and Liam Neeson, Csokas' read books about the Crusades and the period. De Lusignan is loosely based on a real person and even though he's portrayed as a villain, we feel some sympathy for him. Csokas sees him as having a humanity and being corrupted. There were other scenes that gave de Lusignan even more depth, but they aren't on screen. He's hoping they'll turn up on the DVD.
"That is what we were aiming for. In the screenplay we had a lot more of that. A lot of the characters were abbreviated. Strong lines were taken out. It was probably the right choice for the picture, but it did have stronger aspects to it that kept you with the characters as well as the spectacle."
Csokas says despite working with likes of Bloom, Irons, Neeson, David Thewlis and Brendan Gleeson, there were no Hollywood ego clashes. "They were nothing but supportive. When you're on a film like this you give and take as opposed to just take. It was an honour to be amongst them. They were never patronising at all."
He admits to mixed feelings about having to promote his films, from interviews to red carpet appearances. But because of his prominence in Kingdom of Heaven, more attention has been going his way. "I've been fortunate enough to avoid that really, by and large. They seem to be a necessity, especially a film like this on a big scale. It's appropriate."
HE'LL also have to get used to it. Csokas plays the relatively good guy Trevor Goodchild in sci-fi action movie Aeon Flux alongside Charlize Theron. It's an even bigger part than Kingdom of Heaven, one which he found in some ways harder work.
"I'm the romantic lead of sorts. That was again the most challenging character. The director (Karyn Kusama) was on my side fortunately. I enjoyed working very much with Charlize. It's a slightly left-of-centre sci-fi film. It's more about the human condition than a lot of other straightforward sci-fi films."
Another is The Great Raid, shot in Australia, but set in a World War II Japanese prisoner of war camp holding mainly Americans and Australians. The cast includes American actor Benjamin Bratt.
"What attracted me to that film was the study of male camaraderie in a prisoner of war camp, which is not always a subject that's put into the forefront of a film. We had a great time. I lost a lot weight because we had a strict diet. It was a good bonding experience. We had a lot of fun doing it."
The third is Asylum with Natasha Richardson and Sir Ian McKellan. The film has Richardson, who plays psychiatrist McKellan's wife, becoming curious about Csokas, an inmate in an asylum who murdered and cut up his wife. "They are three very different films," he says, laughing. "But I had fun in all of them in very different ways."
Like many New Zealand actors, Csokas has had to work hard to get work overseas. Even his hat-trick post Kingdom of Heaven hasn't meant he can sit on his laurels. He says he's off to London soon to audition for more work. But the amount of work he has got has meant he hasn't had time to return to New Zealand once in four years, as much as he'd like to.
He's spent so much time on location, the closest he has to a home is a bolthole in Los Angeles.
"I have gone back to Los Angeles because that is where the work is from.
"I have a place in LA where I kind of hibernate for a couple of weeks. But I don't really have much affinity for that place - although it has been very kind to me. London is a little bit more like home."
But this is still the stuff that most New Zealand actors dream of - working with some of the film world's best actors and directors. So what is it really like? "The thing that strikes me with it all is . . . that they are so down to earth. They really embrace you in the studio as such. That's what makes it easy."
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