Ryan O'Kane once walked on stage naked, holding nothing but a shovel.
The actor was appearing in an ''angry, emotive play'' that he says would have gone smoothly if not for his girlfriend's loud, shocked exclamation that made the rest of the audience laugh.
Another time, his portrayal of Stanley, the brutish blue-collar worker in A Street Car Named Desire, was so convincing that his father apologised to the show's actresses for his son's behaviour and offered to buy them drinks.
Sometimes, he explains, the challenges of a role are physical or emotional.
Each time, he enjoys the nervousness he feels beforehand: ''It's such a wonderful feeling; the thought that I'm going to go out there in front of people and things could go wrong.
"Sometimes they do and it's such a fine line to see if you can rescue it or not.''
Now 31 and based in Sydney, O'Kane did not always see himself as an actor.
When asked to take along something that represented him for his Class Act photo, he turned up with a rugby ball: ''I thought I was being cool.
"I should have just taken something from Star Trek [he's a self-confessed Trekkie] or something thespian.''
And it was his mother, Kathleen, who eventually convinced him to switch from health sciences, having originally got him involved in Playhouse Theatre productions at the age of 5.
His first television role - and a Qantas TV award - came while he was still at the New Zealand Drama School, playing a reformed criminal in The Insider's Guide to Love.
Later, he appeared in TVNZ's police drama The Hothouse, landed a lead role in Australia's long-running detective drama City Homicide and appeared in Pirates of the Airwaves, a docu-drama about Radio Hauraki.
However, the work he is most proud of is playing 1950s fast bowler Bob Blair in the television movie Tangiwai and protester Des Oram in the 1981 Springbok tour film Rage.
''They're New Zealand stories and shooting in New Zealand is my favourite because of the crews, the cast and the process.
"We often don't have as much money as other countries so things become a little bit more ensemble ... ''
O'Kane, who returns to his home town twice a year, is now writing a dark comedy about the residents of a Dunedin retirement village who reclaim their usefulness and their zest for life by ''taking out'' young thugs from a road gang.
''I'm really, really enjoying the process and the Sarkies brothers can't be the only Dunedin film-makers who get stuff made,'' he jests on the phone from the Bronte house he shares with three other Kiwi actors.
''I mean, I like their work. I like it a lot. But it pays to have some competition.''
The only downside of acting is that he has had to show his bottom on TV ''a lot'', he jokes, and his mother, the head of special needs education at Kavanagh College, is sick of it.
''She says she gets a lot of flak from the people at work and I say, 'that's just what you've got to put up with, Mum. You pushed me into the theatre in the first place so it's your own fault'.''
