Trouble and Strife
Joel Tobeck has starred in no less than four of Renaissance Pictures’ series, and will probably be best remembered for his role as Strife, Ares’ immortal helper and permanent thorn in Hercules’ side, in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. Ian Rentoul chews the fat with the talented Kiwi actor.
Official Xena Magazine: Issue 15
When Xena Magazine spoke to Joel Tobeck a week after shooting his latest appearance as Creegan in Cleopatra 2525, his opening comment was, “What football team do you support?”, before going on to explain that he’s a fan of London team Tottenham Hotspurs. “My interest in football came in about 1980 or 1981 when my dad was a supporter of them. We get English Premier football on television here in New Zealand three to four times a week, so I’ve seen them play a lot but only on television. I’d love to go to White Hart Lane one day. I’ve always loved English football and I used to play soccer.”
Son of talented and accomplished actress Liddy Holloway, who played Hercules’ mum, Alcemene, in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Tobeck’s acting career was launched at the tender age of five thanks to his famous mother. “My mum needed a five-year-old actor,” he recalls, offering his side of the story. “So she put me forward for this play and since then I’ve had the acting bug. I got serious about acting when I was about 14, and I started doing a lot of classes and amateur theatre.
“That was in the Auckland Youth Theatre and independent from school,” he explains. “From there I went to Performing Arts School [also in Auckland] for a full year’s course on contemporary dance, and since the age of 16 I’ve just had on the job training. I auditioned for drama school in 1991 but wasn’t accepted, which I’m grateful for, because I’ve learnt as I’ve gone along. I think you learn better that way. I don’t think you can be taught to act; you can do it or you can’t.
“I did a lot of amateur stuff from about the age of 14, but my first ever professional stage appearance was in a musical called Assassins by Stephen Sondheim. I’ve done more television than stage lately, but prior to that, I did a lot of Theatre Sports with my friend Kevin Smith (Ares), which was all improvisation.”
Tobeck and Holloway aren’t the only members of their family in the profession. “My brother is Mark Harlen,” Tobeck reveals. “He’s a First Assistant Director on Cleopatra 2525 and has also worked on Xena and Hercules. He started on [the New Zealand soap] Shortland Street at about the same time I did, and then went to Pacific Renaissance a couple of years ago. He was initially Second AD and then got moved up to First AD. I finished working with him last week.”
Tobeck’s most prominent roles for Pacific Renaissance have been Strife and Deimos in Hercules and Xena: Warrior Princess and Creegan in Cleopatra 2525. But his first role for the company was as King Beraeus in the season two Hercules episode Promises. “A year later, they arranged another interview for the role of Strife,” he remembers. “I went along and was told that he was to be an out there, punky kind of smart-ass kind. I did an audition and was trying to be wacky and crazy, but was told that it wasn’t really working. So I said, ‘Look, just give me another go,’ and I pulled out all the stops. I did my best John Cleese, Rowan Atkinson and Eddie Murphy impressions and just built on it from there.
“They really had no idea what they were looking for and neither did I, so we just built up the character together. Looking back, it was lucky that I said, ‘Let me have one more go.’ Otherwise I wouldn’t have got the job!
“Initially, the character was only going to be in two or three episodes,” he adds, “but they always said that he might come back in the future. So it was open-ended, and luckily Young Hercules came along, and the character went on from there.
“Once I started to relax and fit into my own groove with [Strife], the writers started to work with it. Once you’ve been writing for a show for a long time, you start to know what the actors are going to say and do, so you write around it. It was really the same for Deimos. I think they regretted killing Strife off during Hercules, so Deimos came back as Strife’s cousin. Basically, they wanted the same type of performance, so I took him a bit further because I wanted to make him a little different.”
Tobeck considers Strife to be a comic character. “Certainly in Young Hercules, and later in Hercules, as I got more comfortable playing him, he got more comic,” he points out. “I rip off John Cleese, Jim Carey and Rowan Atkinson all the time. It just gives me a good opportunity to do all those moves. So I had a great time playing him.
“I like both the dramas and the comedies,” Tobeck continues. “I really enjoy comedy because I get to use my own ideas and play a lot more. But as long as the work is varied, I don’t mind. It can get a bit boring if you are doing the same thing over and over again, and some days, if you are on set from six o’clock in the morning and you aren’t shooting scenes until the afternoon, you get tired and just can’t wait to get home. Then when it comes to your scenes you have to be funny. That’s when it can get difficult, but once the camera is rolling, your instincts take over.”
However, Tobeck admits that he has also enjoyed playing the bad guy in the odd episode of Hercules or Xena, including in Hercules’ Golden Hind Trilogy. “I like being evil too!” he admits. “I probably like to play bad characters more than comic characters. Those are more character-based, and when I first got into acting I enjoyed that side rather than being neutral and on the same level as the other characters. I got into acting because I enjoyed playing, and being evil gives you the chance to do that. I’ve always thought of myself as a character actor.
Tobeck and Kevin Smith interact so well together on screen that you might think the actors prepared their lines together off-screen, but surprisingly, they never did. “Prior to Hercules, Kevin and I had done a lot of Theatre Sports together, in which one of the golden rules is to avoid ‘blocking’, so if an actor gives you an idea on stage, you don’t say, ‘No, I want to do something else.’ The way it works is that if you get an idea you run with it. So it’s basically an instinctual thing between Kev and me.
“I might give him an idea while we’re shooting and he’ll just build on it and we’ll go from there. We just trust each other, and that’s what acting is all about; it’s about listening and trusting, and it works out. Kevin is also an incredibly funny man. It doesn’t always come across on Xena or Herc, but he has a brilliantly funny mind, and when he does comedy the man is a genius.”
Looking back, Tobeck says that there aren’t any other characters in Hercules or Xena that he would have liked to have played. “I’ve enjoyed getting the odd roles, the out there, wacky, different kinds of roles. Those are what I really enjoy doing. I’m not sure whether I’d really want to be a lead man or the boring straight guy. I like being off the wall. It’s kind of fun.”
What about other characters from Greek mythology? “I wouldn’t mind playing a Cyclops or Cupid,” he says. “I would have loved to play Cupid, but my friend Karl [Urban] plays him. I’d also like to have had a go at something like an emperor type of role. And if I could wear drag, I’d have a go at Cleopatra as well!”
In addition to being an accomplished actor and football enthusiast, Tobeck is also an established musician. “The life of an actor is not always a bed of roses,” he explains, “so I’ve had other jobs as well, including waiting, working in a wine factory, and as an usher in the Mercury Theatre in Auckland. There have always been downtimes, and it was during one of these that I moved into the music side of things.
“I’ve got a couple of bands going at the moment,” he reveals. “Kevin Smith and I have had one since 1998 and we play together in the theatre. I’ve got another for a live Saturday night television show we do here in Auckland called Ice As. That one is named Joel Tobeck and Tadow. It’s named after a character in a Snoop Doggy Dog video and we cover mainly rock and roll, but we also throw in some jazz, funk and stuff we make up. But mainly it’s a lot of retro rock and roll hits.
“The band I have with Kevin Smith is called The Wide Lapels,” he continues. “We appear at corporate functions and cover music from the 1960s to the 1990s. We come together for various award shows - the radio station I work for has award shows every year - and we all swap around and play in each other’s bands.
“Music is a great love of mine,” Tobeck remarks. “It’s my passion. But I’m probably a better listener than I am a player, so as long as I have my CDs, I’m happy. Although I love playing it, I probably prefer listening to music more. The friends I play with all the time are streets ahead of me in ability and accomplishment, but I guess you could say that I can hold my own.”
So what other projects does Tobeck currently have on the go? “As far as acting goes, there’s not a lot happening for me at the moment,” he responds. “I do a lot of voiceovers for radio and television, and I’ve got the Ice show every week; so I’m doing a lot of music. I’m just quite happy to go with whatever. I’m talking to people about various projects and there are always things in the pipeline, but until they’re confirmed, you never know.
“I’m quite happy with my lot and I can’t complain,” Tobeck says, “although I’d like to do my own stuff more. I’d like to do something where I play everything, just to have a go at it, and I’d like to direct and write as well. But at the moment, I’m quite happy with what I’m doing, because writing isn’t as easy as some people think. I know when I try and write my own music it’s really quite difficult. But I’ll probably do something of my own quite soon.
“I’ve always been impressed by people like Bill Cosby and Peter Ustinov who write books,” he ponders. “I’d like to be sufficiently knowledgeable on something so that I could share my views with the rest of the world. I’m interested in human behaviour and I like observing things.”
Looking back on his time with Renaissance Pictures, Tobeck has nothing but happy memories. “I’ve really enjoyed working with them,” he enthuses. “In the last five years, I feel that I’ve learnt so much as an actor and a performer. I’ve been given room to experiment with the likes of Strife, Deimos and Creegan, and along the way I’ve learnt more about myself as an actor, trusting myself and pushing things to the point where I know what works and what doesn’t. I’m really grateful to Renaissance for giving me that chance to experiment. It’s so gratifying as an actor to be trusted and to be given a chance to explore all those areas.
“All the Kiwis out here are doing a great job,” he acknowledges. “And of course I just love working with my mates. To work with friends like Kevin, Dean [O’Gorman] and Jodi Rimmer and all the other local Kiwi talent is great fun.”