Career
After suffering a concussion while playing university rugby union in 1987, Smith was forced to sit on the sidelines for almost three weeks. His wife saw a casting call advertisement for the touring musical tribute to Elvis Presley, Are You Lonesome Tonight, and signed up Kevin for an audition. He got the role of bodyguard JoJoe and was the lead understudy. Later that year, Smith joined Christchurch's Court Theatre and performed on stage for the next three years in a variety of roles including Don Pedro in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing and Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire.
In 1989, Smith co-founded a Christchurch theatresports group, Scared Scriptless, performing live comedy. Later that year he got the role of charming "bad boy" Demian Vermeer on the New Zealand primetime soap opera Gloss, and moved to Auckland to work on the series' final season.
In 1993, Smith played Lawrence Hayes in Desperate Remedies. He then appeared as Paul Cosic in the last two seasons of the primetime drama Marlin Bay. For this role, he won the 1995 New Zealand Film and Television Award for Best Supporting Actor.
He screen-tested for the lead role in Paramount's big budget action-film The Phantom, but the role ultimately went to Billy Zane instead. His fellow Hercules: The Legendary Journeys cast member, low-budget-movie actor and Pacific Renaissance Pictures partner Bruce Campbell, was also one of the contenders for the role of the legendary superhero.
Also in 1995, Smith appeared on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys as Hercules' half-brother, Iphicles. Later he joined the cast of Xena: Warrior Princess, as Ares, a role he would later play on Hercules and Young Hercules as well. As the dark and dangerously seductive Greek god of war, Smith gained legions of fans. During this time Kevin performed as Ares on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess and Young Hercules simultaneously.
While guest-starring on Xena, Hercules and Young Hercules, Smith also appeared in other TV shows and films, notably as a Vietnam veteran in the feature film Channelling Baby and as detective John Lawless in three TV movies: Lawless (1999), Lawless 2: Dead Evidence (2000), and Lawless 3: Beyond Justice (2001).
Smith also continued to act in the theatre. During his career he also appeared on several cassettes of alternative music, alongside other musicians, under the band names "The Picnic Boys" and "Say Yes to Apes" which was later renamed "Hyphen-Smythe". He was one of the lead singers of the celebrity band "The Wide Lapels", a band famous for its campy performances of the worst songs of the 1970s.
Read more about this topic: Kevin Smith (New Zealand Actor)
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