The Uruk-Hai: Lawrence Makoare

Kiwi actor Lawrence Makoare is big and burly and plays a mean baddie as Lurtz, one of a specially-bred race of grotesque warring creatures commanded by the evil Dark Lord Saruman in The Lord of the Rings.

Story: Annabel Davidson
photograph: Craig Owen

Meeting actor Lawrence Makoare is a bit like looking for Jaws and finding Flipper. Massive, yes. Dressed in big scary boots, yes. But tough guy, no. The 33-year-old actor perches on the sofa of his tidy home in Auckland's Orakei and doesn't look relaxed until he has a Holiday Light in his hand and the interview is almost over.

Makoare is shy, polite and adorably nervous of the Dictaphone, blushing when he nudges it and whispering that he thinks he may have accidentally turned it off. The actor, who has been typecast as a gang member and thug throughout his nine-year acting career, is barely recognisable as the dope dealer Kahu in Crooked Earth or Grunt in What Becomes of the Broken Hearted.

But the record 10 and a half hours' makeup for his role in The Lord of The Rings trilogy saw Makoare transformed into a state beyond recognition.

"I broke a record for sheer number of hours in up," he recalls. "Every day of filming, I was at 2am and not ready for the camera till mid-day. And I had to remain standing the entire time a g-string," he laughs.

In LOTR, Makoare plays Lurtz, the first of a specially-bred race of grotesque warring creatures commanded by the evil Dark Lord Saruman, who lusts for the power-giving Ring at the center of JRR Tolkien's trilogy. For those uninitiated to Middle-earth lore, the Uruk-hai are bad guys --and Lurtz is one of the baddest. In full makeup and prosthetics, yellow contact lenses and layer upon layer of latex, Lurtz is hideous, rancid, with decaying fang-like teeth and mottled, purple-brown skin. At the end of each day's filming, it would take several makeup artists four hours to remove Makoare's makeup.

"It absolutely ruined my skin," he sighs. "They had to use a sort of adhesive glue to put it on, so to take it off again, they had to use something strong enough to get it off."

The amount of time that went into creating in the makeup room justified the doubling up of Makoare's talents. While Lurtz snuffs it in the first film, Makoare lives on as the Witch King in the trilogy's final installment.

As Lurtz, Makoare's on-screen master is played Christopher Lee, long-time reigning king of scary movies. (Think Dracula, Sleepy Hollow, Gremlins II.) For Makoare, who prefers Richie comics to scary movies, meeting Lee almost drove him to buy a nightlight. "That guy scared the shit out of me when I was little," he exclaims. 'Plus, I was sure he'd be dead by now. But there he was, my on-screen master."

As for the rest of the cast, Makoare says he was actually more star-struck by the massive sets than the actors.

"Sometimes I'd be standing in this set and even though if you could walk around the back and see all the clapboard and scaffolding, the sets were so much like another world. And Peter Jackson would be there and I'd just be pinching myself."

He played chess with Sean Bean and went to the pub with Elijah Wood, who he describes as "a cool little cat with a squeaky voice". Liv Tyler? "Pretty." Billy Boyd? "Really funny." The extras? "Freaks! Either really massive or really tiny."

Of course, compared to Makoare's 6'4" frame, most people would seem tiny. Even the bio-sheet provided by his agent lists his height as 'very large'. His character Lurtz's height is described as "very tall, over seven feet". And although this was achieved through special effects and dwarf stunt doubles for contrast, the photos he shows of himself with the makeup artists make him look gigantic. There's Makoare, camping it up with the crew, holding tiny makeup girls aloft and flexing his muscles.

As for any New Zealander who has done mainly New Zealand films, LOTR provided a whole new experience for Makoare, who compares the coffee and biscuits provided on most Kiwi sets to the lavish spreads on the LOTR set.

"They had every type of biscuit, every type of lolly you could imagine," he reminisces. "It was wicked. I'd go back to my trailer and there'd be buckets of KFC. Amazing."

What he really liked though, was his trailer. Fully decked out with video, TV, stereo, fully stocked fridge and bathroom, Makoare confides he would have rather slept in his trailer than in the five star hotels the cast was accommodated in.

But the efficiency of the LOTR production has not escaped him.

"Everything was so incredibly professional," he says. "The money available means there are no delays, no hiccups that can't be fixed, no problems that can't be solved by an expert crew that's always on hand. It is such a well run system that makes working such a pleasure, such a privilege."

That appears to have held true in both ways. Director Peter Jackson was so impressed by Makoare's performance that he had the scriptwriters substantially extend his part. In a limited edition book signed by Jackson and screenwriter Fran Walsh given to Makoare after filming, the impression he made is obvious: "Dear Lawrence, you have done so much to help bring this extraordinary character to life. The power and strength you gave Lurtz is as real and as frightening as we could possibly have wished for. So, thank you. It has been a joy and our privilege to work with an actor of such commanding presence and infinite patience as yourself We hope we get the chance to do so again."

Although Makoare's physical appearance alone could probably sustain his career, he is clearly a gifted actor and talented mimic. His impression of Wood transforms this enormous man into a tiny high-pitched American in front of my eyes. The example of the cockney accent he had to employ as Lurtz is flawless, his face suddenly becoming menacing and his normally soft voice deep and threatening.

Most recently, Makoare has finished shooting another local feature film, The Maori Merchant of Venice, based of course on William Shakespeare's famous play.

"It's hard enough to learn my lines in English but when it's a soliloquy, Shakespeare and Maori, that's tough work," frowns Makoare. "I just had to say it over and over and over again until it was stuck in my head," he says, before launching into one of those soliloquies in rapid, expressive Maori, without pausing or fumbling.

Makoare also has something else to look forward to aside from fame. He is in a race with Temuera Morrison, co-star in Crooked Earth, for plastic immortality.

"A Lurtz, doll is coming out soon and Tern has a doll of the character he plays in the next Star Wars film, Jango Fett. We're having a race," he grins.

For Makoare, being in such a massively important production does not mean he'll be abandoning us for Hollywood. He says he'd go for a few months but no more. New Zealand is home, with two of his five kids living with him and the other three in Australia. On set, he called his boys at home every night and his other children every Sunday.

"I get the videos of stuff I've done for the boys. They love showing their friends and saying, 'There's Daddy!' I imagine when I get the Lurtz dolls, they'll have a good time pulling off Daddys legs and head," he laughs.

His kids are probably too young to appreciate that their father is working with one of the world's most respected directors and a multitude of Hollywood stars on a trilogy bound to be seen by tens of millions of people. That doesn't seem to have affected Makoare either, although it bugs him that some of his friends expect him to act differently now.

"My usual Saturday night is to get takeaways for the boys, put them to bed and have a few mates round for a drink. Some of them ask me what I'm doing with them and shouldn't I be out acting like a star. That pisses me off. Why the fuck would I want to be doing that? Why would I change?"

And even now that he is recognised for his role on Crooked Earth and is a principal cast member in LOTR, Makoare certainly doesn't act like it has all gone to his head. He spends his money on supporting his kids and whiles away his spare time painting a house he and his sons are soon moving into, a house with a big fence so he can have more privacy. Right down to his big, scary boots, Makoare only spends money on what be needs: holidays and treats for his boys. If you wanted Makoare to sign your Lurtz doll, you'd be best to look for him at Valentines or Rainbow's End playing with his boys, rather than at some celebrity studded bar.

And after LOTR is over and Makoare has done his share of celebrity appearances and chat shows, what next? It's unlikely we'll be seeing the last of him. After all, Peter Jackson himself wants him back.