Guy Pearce got Maori tattoos making 'The Convert'

LOS ANGELES, July 12 (UPI) -- Guy Pearce said his new movie The Convert, in theaters and video-on-demand Friday, made a permanent impact on him as he got Maori tattoos from the film's Maori tattoo specialist.

Pearce, 56, plays a soldier-turned-preacher who tries to maintain peace between the Maori and British settlers in 1830's New Zealand. Pearce, whose dad was from New Zealand, commemorated his late father and 7-year-old son with the tattoos.

"There's a feather on my left arm for my father and a mountain on my right arm for my son," Pearce told UPI in a recent Zoom interview.

The body art did not end there. Pearce said he has added to his family tattoos since wrapping The Convert, signifying his mother and sister on his shoulders.

"I'm telling my family story purely with traditional Maori art," Pearce said.

Making 'The Convert'

Before filming The Convert, Pearce said Maori history was "a new education" for him. Director Lee Tamahori, who co-wrote with Michael Bennett and Shane Danielsen, is a New Zealand director whose 1994 film, Once Were Warriors, was about a modern-day Maori family.

"You really realize that whether something's set in the 1800s or set now, we're the same people," Pearce said. "We're just in different environments and different political times, etc."

Pearce said the sort of violence depicted in The Convert still occurs worldwide. Tamahori's crew recreated battles between Maori tribes and between Maoris and British soldiers with their 19th-century firepower.

"It is always kind of amazing to go, 'Wow, people really held these guns, people stood this close, people actually shot somebody,'" Pearce said. "But, of course, that's still happening in modern day, as well."

Pearce speaks a few lines of Maori in the film, but said he did not attain fluency. He gave all the credit to his co-star, Jacqueline McKenzie, who spoke more Maori dialogue.

"I was so impressed with how much language she was able to speak," Pearce said. "I struggle with just the small amount that I had to do, to be honest."

Returning to 'Priscilla'

Pearce may revisit his own past in a sequel to the 1994, comedy The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Variety announced in April that director Stephan Elliott was developing a sequel.

Pearce said reuniting with Elliott and co-stars Hugo Weaving and Terrence Stamp after 30 years made the prospect of a sequel appealing. The three actors played a trans woman and two drag queens whose bus travels the Outback.

"We're at a very early stage," Pearce said. "As long as it's a good script and as long as there's value in doing it, and it isn't going to tarnish the original at all, I think it will be quite fun."

The original film was adapted as a stage musical. Pearce said he still meets Priscilla fans who continue "coming up to me saying, 'That movie helped me come out to my family' or 'helped me come out.'"

Originally Pearce simply saw Priscilla as a way "for some light to start breaking through" for the LGBTQ+ community after the '80s AIDS crisis and increasing homophobic prejudice.

"For Priscilla to be there at that moment and be a little stepping stone for people, straight people as well, to start looking at the world differently, was just really special," Pearce said, adding that it was "just a fluke that I got to be part of it."

In addition to Pearce, Stamp and Weaving also are straight, and Pearce said they faced some backlash for not casting LGBTQ+ actors in LGBTQ+ roles. Thirty years later, Pearce is prepared to face perhaps even more, though the roles will not be recast.

"There was a bit of backlash about three straight guys playing three queens last time," Pearce said. "Let's see what it's like this time."

Educated in film acting

After the international hit of Priscilla, Pearce came to Hollywood for 1997's cop drama, L.A. Confidential. He said that taught him how to be a performer on film and credited irector Curtis Hanson.

"Curtis Hanson taught me how to act on film, no question about it," Pearce said, adding that he learned about "the subtlety of film acting."

Pearce played a by-the-books cop who exposed police corruption in 1950s Los Angeles.

"I've only got to look at that film, of course, and I get to see what I learned," Pearce said. "There it is captured forever, and of course as we know, it's an exquisite piece of work."

The film's success and acclaim led Pearce to subsequent roles in Ravenous, The Time Machine, The Count of Monte Cristo and Christopher Nolan's second film, Memento. Memento, a mystery told in reverse chronology, continues to spark debate and analysis, Pearce said.

"The interesting thing with Memento is that it literally is a film that is dissected by film students constantly," Pearce said.

Though the next 24 years included films like The Hurt Locker, The King's Speech, Prometheus, Iron Man 3 and The Convert, Pearce said L.A. Confidential remains the pivotal experience of his career and he's still saddened by Hanson's passing in 2016.

"Curtis Hanson also was very much like a mentor father figure for me," Pearce said. "I'll never be able to express how important and special that was for me."