Michael Hurst

Michael Hurst's resume as a screen actor ranges from pimps and politicians, to Cockney tattooists and the best friend of Hercules. On the small screen, he has popped up on Maddigan's Quest, Shortland Street, Hanlon, Country GP, Mataku and Shark in the Park, and starred as an ad man in one-off TV drama Highwater. Having directed extensively for the theatre, in the mid-nineties Hurst turned to directing for the screen, helming the feature film comedy Jubilee, TV drama Love Mussel, and episodes of Hercules.

Michael Hurst was raised in Lancashire, the eldest of four brothers.  At the age of eight his parents emigrated to Christchurch. As a teenager Hurst sought escape from his parents' troubled home life by going to the cinema, where he would sometimes practice stunt fights on the steps of the theatre foyer.

At nineteen, the talented student debater and fencer began training at Christchurch's Court Theatre. Then he began a seven year stint at Theatre Corporate in Auckland, often in comic roles, where he won a reputation for the energy and physicality of his acting.

On the television front, Hurst can be found somewhere in the background of period sheepstealing drama The McKenzie Affair, and in 1976 appeared in Tinkling Brass, one of a series of plays for television. His first lead role on TV came in 1982: one-off drama Casualties of Peace saw him playing a Vietnam-era College student, battling with his war veteran father.

Hurst's big-screen debut has never been seen commercially. Prisoners was made in New Zealand in 1982, as a star vehicle for American actor Tatum O'Neal, then hidden in a vault. A small role in period piece Constance was also left on the cutting room floor.

In 1984 Hurst won the lead role of David Blyth's Death Warmed Up, New Zealand's first splatter movie. The plot saw Hurst's character weathering institutionalisation, sundry wackos, and a motorcycle chase in the tunnels below Waiheke Island. The film won the grand prize at a fantasy film festival in Paris. The same year Hurst began playing drummer Dave Nelson over two series of Heroes, about a band searching for fame.

Crime thriller Dangerous Orphans (1986) is most noteworthy for being the first film in which Hurst co-starred with real-life partner Jennifer Ward-Lealand (he had already acted with her on-stage). Hurst was one of three grown orphans caught up in a mission to one-up various criminal figures; Ward-Lealand played romantic interest to one of the other orphans.

Hurst would work with Ward-Lealand again on his next three features, 1992's The Footstep Man, 1993's Desperate Remedies, and I'll Make You Happy in 1999. In 1993 he starred alongside Australian Sophie Lee and Brit Greg Wise in TV thriller Typhon's People. Hurst played a European mystery man uncovering the truth behind corporate genetic meddling. The script was by author Margaret Mahy.

The Footstep Man saw Hurst in double roles, one minor, the second in Footstep's film within a film: as bearded French painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, with Ward-Lealand as his prostitute muse. The director was highly-regarded cinematographer Leon Narbey.

Desperate Remedies was an over-the-top period melodrama, with Ward-Lealand as the colonial draper at the centre, and the camera and the rest of the cast swirling around her. Hurst was a scheming politician who offers Ward-Lealand's character a marriage of convenience. Wrote The Listener: "[...] it's as the scheming William Poyser that Michael Hurst finally gets a big screen role large enough for his ability." Hurst's role in the ensemble feature I'll Make You Happy, though set in the red light district of modern-day Auckland, had similarities. Hurst let loose as a slimy pimp, who starts to obsess about one of his prostitutes.

Between Desperate and Happy, a new phase of Hurst's career began. Looking for an actor to play the sidekick role on a tele-movie based on the legendary Hercules, Kiwi casting legend Di Rowan thought immediately of Michael Hurst. Hurst went on to play Hercules' companion Iolaus over six seasons of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, plus a number of associated spin-offs, losing his life at least three times in the process.

He also gained a new life: as a screen director. Having already directed the short film I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry, Hurst went on to helm ‘Mercenary', the first episode of  Hercules' third season. Hurst would direct twelve episodes for both Hercules and its companion show Xena: Warrior Princess; Hercules would win him NZ Film and Television Awards for both acting and directing.

Hurst made his feature debut as a director with Jubilee (2000), based on the book by Nepi Solomon. The film stars Cliff Curtis as a kind-hearted procrastinator who gets the chance to prove himself by organising a 75th jubilee. Herald critic Peter Calder enjoyed the film's genial self-confidence and "terrific performances", while Dominion writer Matthew Grainger praised it for "remaining fresh, funny and unpredictable" to the end, and for "the warmth and tenderness with which Hurst treats his characters".

Hurst followed Jubilee by directing Love Mussel, an acclaimed one off satire for television. Written by Braindead's Stephen Sinclair and starring the late Kevin Smith, Love Mussel is a mockumentary about a fictional township which erects a monument to a shellfish with Viagra-like properties. Hurst enjoyed the fact that the script poured "the borax on everyone", including television itself.

Hurst went on to direct two movies from the Treasure Island Kids' franchise back to back, working with Auckland producers Dale and Grant Bradley. He also continues to act, having recently appeared in Maurice Gee adaptation Fracture, and taken cameos in horror movie The Tattooist (as the Cockney friend of the anti-hero) and based-on-a-true-tax-story We're Here to Help (as politician Rodney Hide). In 2006 Hurst took a recurring villian role in Margaret Mahy children's fantasy series Maddigan's Quest.

Hurst received a Laureate Award from the Arts Foundation in 2003. Two years later he was designated an Officer of the NZ Order of Merit, "for services to film and the theatre".