Rena Owen: being Beth Heke...

Interview – 2008

Actor Rena Owen found fame through her role as matriarch Beth Heke in hard-hitting feature Once Were Warriors. She went on to spend two decades in Los Angeles, though she returned to New Zealand to act in Vincent Ward's Rain of the Children and Fiona Samuel's TV movie Piece of My Heart.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Owen talks about:

Her beginnings in theatre as an actor and playwright
Getting her television break on landmark Māori drama series E Tipu e Rea
How Don Selwyn was a mentor to many Māori in the screen industry
Heading to Easter Island for her first movie role: Rapa Nui
Her career-defining role as Beth Heke in Once Were Warriors
Meeting Warriors author Alan Duff before the film was born — and Duff telling her that she'd make a great Beth
Not coping well with the public attention the film's success brought
Enjoying working on Vincent Ward's Rain of the Children
The heartbreaking subject matter of Fiona Samuel's Piece of My Heart
Her hopes of turning Pat Baker novel Behind the Tattooed Face into a movie

This video was first uploaded on 18 December 2008, and is available under this Creative Commons licence. This licence is limited to use of ScreenTalk interview footage only and does not apply to any video content and photographs from films, television, music videos, web series and commercials used in the interview.

Interview - Clare O'Leary. Camera and Editing - Leo Guerchmann

...when the book first came out I remember reading it and I thought 'by god, if this book is ever made into a film, that is a role to die for'.
– Rena Owen on reading Alan Duff's book Once Were Warriors, prior to winning the role of Beth in the movie version

Rena's Full Profile