KEVIN SMITH WILL BE THE FIRST TO TELL YOU THAT there's more to him than just his impressive pectorals. Admittedly, the on-screen presence of his chest usually deserves a casting credit of its own. But in his latest work, Christine Parker's debut feature film Channelling Baby, it's purely Smith, and not his physique, which deserves the attention.

Set in Auckland in the Vietnam War era of the 1970s, then jumping forward about 20 years, Channelling Baby stars Smith and his former Gloss co-star Danielle Cormack as Geoff and Bunnie, who first set eyes on each other as Geoff heads off to fight in Vietnam while Bunnie and friends stage an acid-soaked anti-war protest. On his return just months later, the pair meet again, both scarred physically and emotionally by very separate incidents. They fall in love, have a baby and then their worlds and life together falls apart.

Two decades later, Bunnie, now blind and alone, tries to discover the truth behind what happened to her lover and child. She accepts help from a young clairvoyant, Cassandra (Amber Sainsbury), and her brother Tony (Joel Tobeck). But, as Bunnie soon discovers, the truth is never what it seems.

"This is a small film about big things," Parker explains. "The people who inhabit the film are fairly ordinary, although damaged, as we all are. It's a story about survivors, about people overcoming their circumstances."

Smith's role involved physical as well as intellectual preparation, changing his body shape to give additional weight to his character. "I had to start deliberately undoing all the work I had done for Hercules," explains Smith, who had a lucrative on-going part as Greek God Ares before the series, which was filmed in Auckland, was cancelled a couple of months ago. "I wanted to get that look that said, 'You are not gangly and awkward but you haven't settled into your frame yet.' That early 20s sort of thing."

Says Parker: "Kevin has that very rare quality of being incredibly masculine and sexy but is also able to show vulnerability and intelligence. And he's someone who is very focused and prepared to do the work. He researched everything he could about New Zealanders who went to Vietnam."

Because Channelling Baby is such an intimate drama about love and loss, Pavement asked fellow cast member Amber Sainsbury to interview Smith about his experience of working on a film their costar Danielle Cormack described as an "actors' playground". Twenty-one-year-old Sainsbury, who has just left for London to study at one of the city's most prestigious drama schools, attended the Korean Film Festival with Smith to present Channelling Baby just prior to her departure for England. Like her psychic character in the film, she has some interesting insights into Smith as an actor and Geoff as a character.

AMBER SAINSBURY: You went from Hercules to Cbannelling Baby and back to Hercules again. How did you adapt from playing a Greek God who can do no wrong to portraying an average Kiwi bloke with very human faults?

KEVIN SMITH: Well, that was actually nice because, on Hercules, you don't bring up the normal laws of logic and there are no boundaries. You're a Greek God, so your behaviour isn't dictated by the normal ways of most people, which is fun. It's like being a kid in a candy store.

AS: You can do no wrong?

KS: Well, exactly. Even in doing wrong you I re doing your job because you're evil. But it's good.

AS: How does Ares in Hercules contrast with your character Geoff in Channelling Baby?

KS: Geoff is very, very human. Sometimes when you have boundaries put on you, it's kind of freeing because you've got guidelines to work with. Here's someone who has to live in this world and deal with this worldly issue as it transpires in the film, so there's an astringency which allows you to fly.

AS: If, as Ares, you're a perfect creature and immortal and, as you say, can do no wrong, then there's not a lot of room as an actor to really push the boundaries. Whereas if you're human, then there are endless possibilities, aren't there?

KS: Exactly, because there is consequence in everything. When you're being a God, you perform certain ways because you're being immortal and so the consequences aren't as severe as when you're a mere human. But with Geoff, everything has consequences. Even absences he doesn't initiate have consequences which he suffers for, you know?

AS: You go from being the God of War to a human involved in love and war, don't you?

KS: Yeah, exactly.

AS: There are extremes of human emotion involved in the story of Channelling Baby. It's not like it's just a slice of life like, for example, Via Satellite, or something that is just very calm as far as the daily happenings are concerned. The story goes from one extreme to another and it covers a 20-year period.

KS: Yeah, and most of it is very challenging. With a film like this, someone's offering you something to do which is difficult but if you execute it well, it'll be very rewarding. I guess that defines a challenge and that's what the film was. I thought it would be difficult but that if it came off, it would be very rewarding. That will be revealed over time if people find it as rewarding to watch as I found the process of working on it. I enjoyed working on the film and that isn't always a given. Sometimes you work on something and you're so tied up inside it that it doesn't occur to you that you might not like the finished product. So when I saw the cast and the crew screening, I was incredibly nervous, not of what people were thinking, but, 'Please, dear God, let me like it! Please! Please!'

AS: Because you've invested so much of yourself in it?

KS: Yes. And that was like this relief. I like it!

AS: That's probably why it was so hard for you and I to take criticism about it. It's because we both like it, as a film.

KS: I take on board what people say and people who have seen it have made their criticisms. A lot of it is valid and a lot of it's constructive and I take that on board. But I know that all of us did the best work that was possible for us to do at that time, so we're true to that. Whatever criticism it may get, I know that it was as perfect as we could achieve at that time.

AS: Do you think that Geoff is one of the most rewarding and beguiling characters you've ever played?

KS: It would be good if I did. It wasn't until after the shoot finished that I realised how much it had got under my skin. I'm not one of these people who come home and I'm still having a 'Nam flashback while I'm sitting in the lounge watching Sports Café, you know? The first day after the end of the shoot, I was already on the Hercules set and I almost resented it. I mean, God forbid I should complain about work! But I resented putting on these clothes which were like a second skin to me. I played this guy for, like, three or four years but I put them on and went, 'This is wrong.' I felt like I was betraying Geoff, you know? And then, when I was home one day and I didn't have to work and I was in the shower, I realised I was pining for Geoff. I said goodbye to him in the shower!

AS: It's a very intimate story and relationship that's portrayed in Channelling Baby. You spent every day for two weeks - 12 to 16 hours a day - being in love with this woman. In fact, the shoot was very intimate for all four of us actors... And then we've got the crew, as well...

KS: You couldn't avoid the intimacy. You're exposed to a high level of emotion that revolves around loss and pain. You're carrying it with you all day and it's exhausting carrying that with you. The nice thing was going home to a wonderful family and my kids. It was sort of like medicine. And yet, every morning when my alarm went off, I jumped out of bed and I was just buzzed driving down the motorway. I knew I was going to work with something that was intrinsically unpleasant but I was buzzed about doing it, man! It was like running to the firing squad because there's a Pixie Caramel waiting for you there!

AS: Did you have to tap into emotions that you find hard to access to tackle Geoff as a character?

KS: Emotionally, you suffer everything you do. You harbour everything you play. And different characters mean you have to access different areas of that. Obviously, in my personal life, I never have to endure the things that Geoff does. But we all do have our own little crisis in life. But that's a private thing, you know? To do it publicly, just by the nature of my career, I've had occasion to be bollocky naked in front of people I like. But playing Geoff was more exposing. Ya know what I mean?

AS: You were naked emotionally rather then physically, which is more disconcerting.

KS: Yeah, exactly.

AS: Like, did I cry? Was that me blubbering in the corner over there?

KS: Yeah, so after every take I went down to the pub and smacked someone, just to show them I was still a man! [laughs]

AS: Do you consider yourself a Kiwi bloke then?

KS: Very much so, though not in the way that people take it to mean. The general idea of what a Kiwi bloke is is a very narrow thing and I wear it with pride because it is a particular type. But it's not as narrow as people would accept. They've forgotten one or two facets of it. I thought about this the other day. I've played a very male character in women's stories. To an extent, Channelling Baby is pretty much a woman's journey of discovery. So I quite often represent the baggage that was holding them down, you know? The number of times I've played the guy standing there, slack-jawed, going, 'But I love you.' But I always have some woman saying, 'Yes, and in my way I will always love you too. But I've got to grow.' And I'm the one left standing there as they disappear into the distance. It's like, 'Arrrrrgh! Bloody hell! I'm the one who says you need someone to make an example of.'

AS: So you've really built your career on holding women back, haven't you?

KS: Yeah, but I'm the facilitator. There's nothing cruel about the characters I play in these women's things. It's just that I am part of a world that we are trying to escape, you know? But, for some reason, I open their eyes to that and I'm a facilitator for their freedom. I'm not suggesting that this is what happens in Channelling Baby but that's generally what happens to me because I am a bloke.

AS: Because you're a very masculine looking guy, do you find that it sometimes gets in the way of how people perceive you and your performances as an actor?

KS: Oh, definitely.

AS: Do you struggle to overcome that stereotype of playing the amazing guy who is the facilitator?

KS: Well, I think I get used in those things so that they have to raise the stakes because, generally, a guy is decent and all the rest of it. They have to weigh the stakes like he's not an easy thing to walk away from. Masculinity is a double-edged sword sometimes. It's like greatness. Some men are born masculine; some men have masculinity thrust upon them. It just so happens that I have the latter. But I've pursued it as well and you always run the danger of being elevated for that very reason. But, eventually, it'll narrow the field of things that people will consider you for. I like to think I still have the capacity to surprise people. What this relies on is someone going, 'You know what? I've just had a perverse thought about casting and Kevin Smith could do this.' And 'this' is obviously something Kevin Smith wouldn't normally do.

AS: Does it ever irritate you that people take your physicality before your performance? Has that ever happened?

KS: Yeah, it happens all the time. And I was really bummed when I saw a lot of the reviews for Channelling Baby. What it does is cheapen the work of everyone involved. Yeah, a couple of reviews mentioned that. It was like that's what I brought to the table: 'Kevin Smith gets his shirt off.' Well, stuff the press, you know? The words 'Smith's 'pecs appear', that's the first thing they write before anything else. Yeah, it's a pity. I'm sure the people who write it are intelligent, insightful people but it cheapens them as well.

AS: It must be pretty frustrating as a performer if you get a review and all it talks about is your physicality and what you look like, rather than your performance as an actor.

KS: Yeah, but the other person I don't want to become is that guy who whines about it, who goes, 'Oh no! I just can't get past this!' I didn't come into acting until my mid-20s and I've been extremely fortunate. That's something that isn't lost to me every day of my life, how fortunate I've been. That's why it seems churlish to complain about reductive comments in reviews.

AS: Have you ever played a gay character?

KS: Yes, I have once, in a Stuart Hoar play called Exile [1990, Co-op Theatre, Auckland]. I had to hold Geoffrey Snells hand. I've never been cast in a big gay part though.

AS: Would you be open to doing it?

KS: The thing with acting is, as much as the final performance, I enjoy the process of getting there. But that's a road I haven't been down, although, I have to say, I had the first prime time male-to-male kiss on New Zealand television on City Life. And it was a chaste little peck at that, you know?

AS: But this is the thing that people don't realise. You've played Ares the God of War and you've also played a character who kissed a man on prime time TV, so you've really done a whole lot more than people are giving you credit for.

KS: Yeah, and it's just one of those things that people have a problem with you doing, ya know? It's just rock 'n' roll. Like, when I fight people on Xena, I'm not really killing them. And you know what? I kissed this guy but, chances are, I'm not going to take him home and fuck him either. This is all just part of this world that we create.

AS: What was it like for you working with a female director on Channelling Baby?

KS: It was cool. I have worked with a woman director on an episode of television before but it was nothing as personal as this though. I remember the first workshop Danielle [Cormack] and I ever did. We workshopped for a long time before we even began rehearsals for the movie because it's all part of how deep and involved everyone was in the project. I remember thinking, 'Do you know about the male experience?' And when we started rehearsing, Christine said, 'Look, I would like to ask you not to see the rushes because you will start editing yourself and I'd like for it to stay fresh in your mind.' It's a question of trusting the director. And, after the first days rehearsal, I said, 'No sweat, man. It's totally cool.' And yes, he's a man. I bring that to the table anyway. My experiences as a man are infused into that portrayal. Christine wrote the character Geoff. She knows his life. And so, between us, from rough primary material, we created the character. And it was just a wonderful moment when I could let go. It's that time of life too, because I'm 36 now. I remember when I was 27, I had my vision at the Mercury Theatre when Raymond Hawthorne said to me, 'How old are ya?' I said, 'I'm 27.' He said, 'What are you doing?' And, at the time, I was mainly doing stand-up comedy and theatre sports. Then there's a pause and he says, 'You've got 10 years left as a leading man. Don't fuck around.' I'm coming close to the end of my 10 years, so everything could easily collapse in the next 12 months [laughs]. But it was always this desperate hurdle to always do something. Like, 'Oh my God! My meter's running out!' That's not just because he said something but because, beyond a certain point, I thought, 'I'm going to have nothing more to offer.' And, as I get older, I've approached the point where there's more of a calm that has come over. It's not to say that I don't still want to achieve things. Of course I do. I have the same ambitions as everyone else.

AS: So, maybe the leading guy parts in the women's stories is something that you can be more bothered with now?

KS: That calmness comes over you when you realise that the particular train you're on is pulling into another station. I mean, it's true that in the last couple of years I've done my best work. Bottom line is that three really important things have happened to me as an actor: first, being hired by Elric Hooper [artistic director at Christchurch's Court Theatre] in 1988 for Europe, second, being directed by Michael Hurst as Othello, which opened up so many doors for me as an actor, where suddenly all these lights went on; and, thirdly, doing Channelling Baby, which gave me permission to access certain things as a performer. Some scientist once said, 'I stand so tall because I stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before me.' Each thing I do stems from things that people have given me in the past. And doing Channelling Baby is one of those things that I'll always be proud of.

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