Temuera Morrison

Temuera Morrison
Temuera Morrison, August 2007
Born	December 26, 1960 (1960-12-26) (age 48) Rotorua, Bay of Plenty, New Zealand

Temuera Derek Morrison (born December 26, 1960) is a New Zealand actor. He has become one of the country's most famous stars for his roles as the abusive Jake "the Muss" Heke in 1994's Once Were Warriors and as bounty hunter Jango Fett and the Clone Troopers in the Star Wars series.

Personal life

Morrison, a Māori, was born in the town of Rotorua in the North Island of New Zealand, the son of Hana (née Stafford) and Laurie Morrison, a musician.^[1] His sister was performer Taini Morrison and his uncle was musician Sir Howard Morrison. His secondary education took place at Wesley College, Auckland. Morrison lives in New Zealand, and divides his time filming there and in Australia and the United States. He has a 17-year-old son, James, from a relationship in the late 1980s with singer Kim Willoughby from the all-girl group When The Cat's Away.

Career

Trained in drama under the New Zealand Special Performing Arts Training Scheme, one of his earliest roles was in the 1988 film Never Say Die, opposite Lisa Eilbacher. Before this he had starred as a character called "Ricky" in the original TV1 soap opera called "Close To Home". He played Dr. Hone Ropata on the television soap opera Shortland Street from 1992–1995; he was immortalized when another character rebuked him with the line "You're not in Guatemala now, Dr. Ropata! " hawe

In 1994 he received attention as the violent and abusive Māori husband Jake Heke in Once Were Warriors, a film adaptation of Alan Duff's novel of the same name. The role won him international acclaim, and he received the 1994 award for best male performance in a dramatic role from the New Zealand Film and TV Awards. He reprised the role in the sequel, What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?, for which he received the Best Actor award from the New Zealand Film Awards. He has appeared in supporting roles in Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997) and The Beautiful Country (2004). In 2005, Morrison became the host of the talk show The Tem Show on New Zealand television.

Star Wars

In recent years, Morrison has received much popularity from his role as the bounty hunter Jango Fett in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002). Part of the film's plot involves an army of clones created with Jango's DNA; Morrison also provided acting and voice work for the soldiers. He reappeared as a number of clones in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, the final film of the series, and rerecorded the lines of the character Boba Fett (Jango's "son" and another clone) in the 2004 DVD re-releases of the original Star Wars trilogy, replacing the voice of Jason Wingreen.

He has since portrayed Jango Fett and his clones in a number of Star Wars video games, all produced by LucasArts. He played the commando "Boss" in Star Wars: Republic Commando and voiced all the troopers in Star Wars: Battlefront and Star Wars: Battlefront II. He played Jango again in Star Wars: Bounty Hunter, which reveals the origins of Jango Fett, and played Boba Fett in the 2006 game Star Wars: Empire at War.

Other roles

Temuera returned to Shortland Street for six weeks in June/July 2008 as Dr Hone Ropata.

In 2008, Morrison also appeared on New Zealand skit comedy television show Pulp Sport where he appeared in a sketch that made fun of him being cloned.

Filmography

Film

Television

References

External links

• Temuera Morrison at the Internet Movie Database
• Betros, Chris (July 17, 2006). "Once a warrior, Temuera Morrison now New Zealand's best known film star". Japan Today. Retrieved February 20, 2007.