My friend Shane Rangi is the subject of a great piece in the New Zealand Herald. I finally had the chance to meet him in person on the set of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. He shared Bundaberg Ginger Beer with me, prior to my proposal, and we had a great time hanging out on the set. He was also present for the proposal, which made it even more special to me. It’s a memory that we both share. I’ll write more about that in future reports about my visit to the set.
Shane Rangi, who are you?
The man who stabbed Frodo in Lord of the Rings is alive and well in Wellington, not that anyone would look Shane Rangi in the eye and run for cover. With his friendly face hidden beneath makeup and eerie, computer-generated images, Rangi dealt Frodo a near fatal blow when he played the sinister Witch-king of Angmar in Fellowship of the Ring.
“I thought I’d make a T-shirt with, ‘I stabbed Frodo’,” Rangi laughs, beaming good humour. “I go to conventions and talk to people who know who I am, and because they’re right into it they come up and go, ‘You killed Frodo.’ I say, ‘Look, don’t get upset with me, he survived’.”
Rangi, 40, Ngati Porou, is a creature actor, stuntman and arguably New Zealand’s most experienced motion-capture performer. He has brought a scary range of aliens and mythological beasts to life since he graduated from Toi Whakaari New Zealand Drama School in 1990. The line-up includes Uruk-hai orc; Ringwraith, Easterling NCO, Minotaurs General Otmin and Asterius, a werewolf, robot, alien from Skyrunners and Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still to name a few.
He appears in all three Narnia movies as an actor and a motion-capture performer, playing seven different creatures in Prince Caspian, including the physical Aslan. In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, appearing in cinemas in December this year, he plays a Minotaur, the muscle of the ship’s crew, and “one of the boys” rather than an evil monster.
Whether he plays an alien, a robot or a creature, Rangi is anonymous, disguised beneath layers of make-up, prosthetics, and visual effects. But anonymity also brings more work.
“The beauty of doing creature performance as opposed to straight acting is that because people don’t see my face I can play lots of different characters,” he says.
Rangi trained at Toi Whakaari, New Zealand Drama School where he learned to analyse and build character, skills he draws upon for every creature he plays.
“That’s why for Prince Caspian I could play seven different creatures. I was able to hop into suits and give a different performance for each one.”
I didn’t know that he stabbed Frodo! Weird! Might be nice to actually see him on screen, and not covered in prosthetics or makeup or cloth or something.
I didn’t know he stabbed Frodo either! I do know that he split his chin falling down in a minataur(?) suit, and smashed his face against the portcullis in the Castle Raid. Go Shane Rangi!
I’m happy he’s in this movie! I enjoyed him on the behind-the-scenes features on the Prince Caspian DVD.
Heh. Our Minotaur was the lord of Minas Morgul. That’s cool. 🙂
Certainly he is talented,and he seems to be a very nice guy, and I hope he had a great time While filming,because the set of the VDT was not gonna be the same without him and his Positive spirt 🙂