If anyone can bring a room to a standstill with just one word - ‘‘fellas'' - it is New Zealand actor Byron Coll. He tells Rebecca Fox how a commercial provided one of his most amazing experiences to date.
If you watched a commercial break during recent Rugby World Cups you will know who Byron Coll is, although you might not know his name.
He was the endearing, annoying, enthusiastic rugby supporter ‘‘Tim'', tracking the All Blacks' every move in an award-winning credit card advertisement.
Yelling ‘‘Richie...'', ‘‘Nonu, Nonu, Nonu'' or ‘‘You guys ...'' as he raced to join the rugby players, he was having the time of his life.
That was not because it was the All Blacks - well, maybe a little - but because the guys behind the commercial were happy to give him space to ham it up.
‘‘They allowed me to play with a bunch of professional sportsmen who didn't have an acting bone in their body,'' he said.
‘‘It was a conundrum. How to make these wooden sports stars become persons on camera.''
So he ‘‘overdid it'', amped it up and ‘‘it just snowballed''.
Coll's willingness to give it a go - like appearing naked but body-painted as a penguin in Heat at the Dunedin Fringe Festival in 2010 - has led to all sorts of interesting situations but has also helped get him some amazing roles.
When he was auditioning for a role in Jane Campion's Top of the Lake in London, mention of his naked penguin role intrigued the director.
‘‘Jane said ‘Show us what you've got', so here I am fully clothed, on my knees, imitating a penguin to a camera phone and I kept going till she asked me to stop.‘‘Then she asked if I could do a gorilla, then a spring lamb.''
He then had to do it all over again for a co-writer, after the video of his audition was lost.
It was all worth it, however, when they wrote into the movie a role, ‘‘Penguin'', just for him.
‘‘I had auditioned for a pre-written role so this was, like, pretty cool. It was awesome to have someone who is so strong in New Zealand film and female see something like that.''
Despite his role as the penguin being quite painful and leaving him wondering what on earth he was doing, ‘‘you never know what will lead to something''.
His role as ‘‘Tim'' led to some fun times and some bizarre ones, such as when then All Black Dan Carter rang him up and asked him to play a joke on his colleagues.
‘‘A lot of the guys had been giving him c... about being my roommate [in the advertisement] so he wanted to get back by sneaking me in to hug these specific guys.''
So after the 2011 world cup, he turned up at the hotel to see the All Blacks and after a bit of explaining was led to the team by a security guard.
‘‘He opened the door and pushed me in. Here were all the All Blacks facing Mike Cron ... and I was like ‘Oh god, what do I do?'.
‘‘So it was like here goes and I yelled as loud as I could, ‘fellas'. And it was just bizarre; everyone turned around and I was hugging everyone.
‘‘I saw Steve Hansen, so sprinted up to him and jumped up to give him a bear hug.
‘‘It was the weirdest experience of my life and also one of the best.
‘‘It's funny and ironic that it came from a commercial.''
While he did not play just one type of character, he would be bringing that type of comedy to his character in the Fortune play Over the River and Through the Woods for its New Zealand premiere in June.
Written by Joe DiPietro, it is about Nick, a single Italian-American living in New Jersey, who has dinner every Sunday with his two sets of doting grandparents.
But when he tells them that he has been offered his dream job and a new life in Seattle, they scheme to keep him in town.
To Coll, the role brought images of the character George Costanza from Seinfeld, ‘‘if'' he was in Seinfeld's role and living with his parents.
‘‘The comedy is very George Costanza for me. When he feels uncomfortable he wears it on his sleeves; he can't hide it.''
He was always attracted by characters who were a bit different, flawed, out for revenge or had some big need.
‘‘Here it is a clash of eras and the full realisation of what era he is and who he is.''
In town for a photographic shoot for the play, Coll was sure the rehearsals for the play were going to be very entertaining and would help the cast ‘‘bleed out'' all the great moments suggested by the play.
He was also looking forward to working with the Fortune's new artistic director, Jonathon Hendry, who was teaching at drama school when Coll was in third year.
Between now and rehearsals for the show, Coll will tour Australia with another production of Little Shop of Horrors, in which a band and actors work together at breakneck pace to create the live soundtrack of the movie.
He also had three other projects coming out, including parts in Bombshell about the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and Gene, about Gene Batton and an appearance in Terry Teo.
So it is a busy life for the actor who fell into acting when he was called in to fill a gap on a Sheilah Winn Shakespeare team and ended up winning a place to go to the Globe Theatre in London.
It was enough to convince him university was not for him and neither were his studies in music composition.
So after failing an audition for Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School, he did a theatre course at Hagley Community College and then reapplied to Toi Whakaari, got accepted and graduated in 2007.
‘‘I was pretty green.''
So after a year in Wellington, he moved to Auckland where he has lived ever since, appearing in various television and film projects.
‘‘I have done a lot of comedy.''
However, later this year he will move to Melbourne to live with his partner.
To see
Over the River and Through the Woods, Fortune Theatre, June 11-July 9
