STACK NZ March 2017 Issue 82

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08 MARCH 2017
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A fter starring as Azog, king of the Orcs in the
big-budget Hobbit trilogy, Kiwi actor Manu
Bennett suspected that Roger Corman’s
Death Race 2050 might present a rather different
opportunity. "I've never done comedy or satire and
knew this would be a wild ride,” says Bennett, best
known as gladiator Crixus on Spartacus and DC
comic book character Slade Wilson in the TV action
series Arrow.
During his high school years in Newcastle,
Australia, Bennett was involved in a tragic car
accident that killed his mother and brother, leaving
him in a coma for two weeks.
And while he felt anxious about driving for years
after, he says: “Its probably what set me on my
path of acting because that tragedy interrupted my
focus on academics. Instead I focused on the arts
and that’s what got me through everything.”
His Spartacus success would later banish his
fear of the open road, splurging on a Hurst special
edition Mustang in 2011 after moving to Los
Angeles where he envisioned spending the next
chapter of his life. Instead he immediately booked
Arrow, filmed in San Francisco.
“I’ve got a radar jammer in my car so I drove
there pretty fast. Let's say it gave me an advance
taste of Death Race 2050,” quips Bennett, who
claims his own Mustang is very similar to the car
Luke Goss drove in 2013’s Death Race: Inferno .
“They’re virtually identical, only his was yellow and
mine is gold. Mine also has Crixus painted on the
back,” he boasts.
“I think I got my courage up a bit more during
the filming of Arrow because my character was
meant to be very wealthy, so I asked the producers
if I could have a Lamborghini. But when they said
no, I went out and got one myself instead.”
The actor was subsequently invited to the Texas
Motor Speedway where he learned to drive cars at
performance speed. “I ended up coming second
out of 50 other people, so I figured I must have
some skills.”
When asked about working with the legendary
Roger Corman, now 90-years-old and still going
strong, he says, “When you say 90, it just doesn’t
apply to him. I take that number and say: 90 years
of experience. His work output is incredible, and
he’s really sharp and lucid while I was umming and
aahing. He’s an incredible human being and a living
legend, so the chance to work alongside him was
part of why I took the project in the first place.”
Bennett plays racer Frankenstein in this updated
version, which loosely reprises the themes of
Corman’s 1975 original, Death Race 2000, starring
Sly Stallone and David Carradine. Only this time,
the government-sponsored race is about culling the
species from an overpopulated future world.
Death Race 2050, he cautions, is nothing like the
Jason Statham/Luke Goss versions. “There’s been
modern interpretations of the film, but this isn’t like
them. This is a Roger Corman film – a celebration
of the ‘70s film with all the satire, humour and
psychedelic vibe. It’s a very stylised B-film and all
about sharing some popcorn and a few laughs with
your mates.”
Shooting Death Race 2050 in Lima, Peru, the
city had a profound effect on Bennett. “Its a giant
metropolis surrounded by jungle with no rules. I
was in the favelas one day and saw someone get
hit by a car and killed and people just threw a t-shirt
on top of him and took pictures. It seemed like no
big deal to anyone that this was a dead body. It was
bizarre.
“And in a way that’s kind of what Death Race is
about – a desensitised society where life is hard
and tough and you use drugs to fuel your emotional
needs 'cause people are doing nothing but sitting
on the couch watching TV."
Death Race 2050 is out now on DVD and Blu-ray.
Manu Bennett takes a wild ride in Death Race 2050. Words Gill Pringle
After shedding several bandmates James
Mercer is creating new music again under
The Shins moniker, with the release this
month of Heartworms. But the truth he has
always flown solo.
“In the late ‘90s there were certain bands
that weren’t really bands, it was just a guy
in his bedroom,” Mercer explains. “There
was just a revolving cast of characters and
then the main dude. I guess I felt there was
licence there for me to just create a band,
and it would be a recording project. It’s funny
because it became really difficult to let those
guys go – the perception was that we were
The Shins, and in reality it was actually that I
was The Shins. You can’t fight perception, you
know.”
The musician’s two daughters were the
inspiration for one of Heartworms' best cuts,
the empowering and ever so sweetly delivered
Name For You, which really is an anthem of
reassurance and support for all girls and young
women. “I think that, looking back [on myself]
as a young man, there’s a certain – what is
the word? – enmity, that you feel towards the
opposite sex. You get really frustrated, and
it’s always such a problem in life. The culture
out there is feeding you all this bullsh-t. So I
think men can very easily slip into this sort of
misogyny and they don’t realise it. I mean, I’ve
seen it in myself." Zoë Radas
Heartworms by The Shins is out on March 10.
JAMES MERCER: A ONE-MAN BAND
DEATH RACER
Heartworms is the new album fromThe Shins – but like their others, it's pretty much a solo venture.