Temuera Morrison “Jango & Boba Fett'“ Interview

Hannah:
Welcome back to The RaeSide. I’m joined by the most famous face in Star Wars arguably, because there’s millions of them. You can’t miss him. It’s Tem Morrison. How you doing? You’re in Sydney how is it here?

Temuera Morrison:
I love Sydney. Nice people, lovely place. It’s a bit bigger than Auckland, New Zealand, and the little town I’m from Rotorua. There’s a lot going on here. I love where have I been? Coogee Beach, ooh, nice. Bondi Beach, that’s quite nice too. Watson’s Bay’s very nice. Double Bay’s quite nice.

Hannah:
Oh, then you’re getting upper class here. You’re fancy!

Temuera:
Well, I had a buddy who lived there, so I thought I was pretty fancy when I went there too. Sam Neill was his name. Sam Neill had a house there.

Hannah:
Oh Sam Neill?

Temuera:
Just as... funnily enough, when I went to his house, Tom Cruise was there too.

Hannah:
I can’t tell if you’re pulling my leg here.

Temuera:
So I was going, “Wow, wow!” Even I was falling over.

Hannah:
I have some Star Wars questions for you.

Temuera:
Well, I’ll do my best. Maybe the fans can help me if I get stuck.

Hannah:
That’s true, that’s true. We’ll ask them.

Let’s talk Ming-Na Wen; fantastic sidekick for you in The Book of Boba Fett. Talk to us a little about working with her as Fennec Shand. How was she?

Temuera:
We had a natural rapport. For some reason, we just got on like that. She thought I was a bit of a serious kind of guy at first probably because she first saw me in the middle of doing something, maybe some stunt stuff I was rehearsing, and I wanted to get it right.

So she was a bit nervous at first, she said. But within minutes, we just you know sometimes you just click with people? Sometimes it just happens. You gel. And it was very much like that with her.

She’s experienced. She’s been around, done enough television and film very experienced. And both her and I wanted to work pretty hard, in the hope they might carry on do a two and a three and a four and a five and six. We’re trying to nudge them in that direction too.

Hannah:
I’m with you there. Yeah, I’ve been trying to nudge them in that direction too.

Temuera:
We need more nudging! But anyway, she’s beautiful. And she annoyed me at times because there I was, doing some brilliant acting and then she’d just sort of do a nice little smile or something cheeky at the end of the scene.

She just has that ability to steal the scene off you. But yeah, just very warm, cool. She’s doing up her house at the moment, so I keep in touch with her. I say, “Has the house finished being renovated yet?”

Hannah:
Oh, I love that.

Temuera:
And she goes, “No, not yet. Not quite.” There’s just a pool to go just the pool to do.

Hannah:
I love that.

Temuera:
I saw her recently. Where did I see her? Dallas. I just saw her in Dallas, there you go. And yeah, she’s looking good. We were signing.

Hannah:
She’s always looking good.

Temuera:
She’s a portal. It was good too, because we had a double photo thing going on.

Hannah:
Oh yes, yes.

Temuera:
So she boosted me. She boosted my numbers right up there. I got a few more photographs due to her coming in and sharing the frame. So it was great.

Hannah:
How fantastic. And talking about the character of Boba, you play him so fantastically well in the show.

Temuera:
Thank you, thank you.

Hannah:
He holds so much stoicism and heroism. How do you feel you relate to his character as you, as Tem?

Temuera:
Not really. Not really. I was blessed in a way that we hadn’t seen much of this guy. He was mysterious. I think he put Han Solo in the cargo hold and said something along those lines, and that was about it. Then you never saw him again.

I must pay respect to Jeremy Bulloch, who was in the outfit. A beautiful friend I knew Jeremy and his wife. We were always at a convention or two together. He set up a lot of that early stuff, and then for me, it was about really finding out more about Boba Fett.

The whole exploration and discovery of Boba was what made it really, because we didn’t see him being nurtured by the Tusken culture. They took him in and trained him again. So all those things we were able to fill in in The Book of Boba Fett.

I was overjoyed to play Jango Fett, but I was even more overjoyed to get the call to play Boba many, many years later. Attack of the Clones was way back in the year 2000.

Hannah:
Yes.

Temuera:
And it was here. I remember that because the Olympics were on that same year. I could see the circles being put on the bridge outside my hotel. So I remember that quite vividly.

But yeah, to get the call to play Boba Fett, the clone son of Jango, many, many, many years later I was just over the moon.

I’d heard about The Mandalorian, and I was ringing the agent going, “Hey, hey, what’s this Mandalorian about? Why isn’t anyone ringing me?”

So to get the call and finally get into the office and work with Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni they were the executive producers and they brought in Robert Rodriguez. We’ve become a very close family. We work closely together. Robert and I would meet on the weekends and do some training bit of weights, do some stuff on the weights and then we’d have a bit of...

And he’d make great margaritas for me too before he left. I went, “Ah, did you bring your special mix?” “Oh yes, yes.” He brought the special tonic from Austin, Texas makes a great margarita. Man, and after a couple of those, wasn’t too much of Saturday left, yeah.

Hannah:
Yes, yes.

Temuera:
You feel like you’re on the sands of Tatooine again.

Hannah:
Yeah. Oh, very much so. Very much so.

Temuera:
Tequila in that cantina.

Hannah:
In the cantina, that’s it, that’s it. Bit of Spocka for you.

Okay—but you must do something besides talking to Star Wars fans?

Temuera:
That’s what I do! I connect with Star Wars fans everywhere.

Hannah:
No, you must do something else, eh? You’re learning something else, you’re studying, you’re working?

Temuera:
This is it.

Hannah:
This is it? Yeah I connect with Star Wars fans everywhere.

Temuera:
Well, I do the same job as you, then, in a way.

Hannah:
Oh no, stop it. Same job as you. I love that. Love that.

And Tem, obviously, we actually already shared a special moment today.

Temuera:
We did.

Hannah:
And we talked a little bit about your music.

Temuera:
You made my talk I always dread those talks. But I just they start and they finish, and I don’t know what I’m gonna do in between. So you must be the only one that heard my album. So that was great. I got to sing a little bit.

I actually used to sing quite a bit in a restaurant, you know?

Hannah:
Oh yeah?

Temuera:
After rugby I played my game off and then I used to get 70 bucks for playing for two hours in a restaurant.

Hannah:
I love that.

Temuera:
And I only had 20 songs. So every time I’d watch the tables to make sure they all left, and then I could start my repertoire again. So yeah.

Hannah:
Fantastic. Fantastic.

Temuera:
It’s good, yeah. I come from, my uncle was a very famous singer too. So I was brought up with a lot of music. We imitated them a lot too. So it’s nice, yeah. I enjoy that whole process going into the studio and recording.

I always walk in and pretend my sound guy was I'd call him Quincy. “Hey Quincy! What are we doing today, Quincy?” The famous composer, recording.

I was watching something the other day, actually, talking about Quincy. That song We Are the World, We Are the Children there’s a doco about that whole evening. Yeah, they did that song in one evening. After the American Music Awards, they all made their way across the road. Lionel Richie was running the whole show. Incredible documentary. I think it’s on Netflix. Amazing you’ve got to watch it. We Are the World, I think.

Hannah:
I’m a musician too. I like music. I think that’s why I connect with it.

Temuera:
What do you play?

Hannah:
I play bass. I’m a bassist.

Temuera:
You get the groove out that way. One day I had to play bass because the bass player never turned up. So I just had to do the basic bassline. But I was trying to sing and play bass at the same time. I could not do that for some reason.

Hannah:
Can you sing and play bass?

Temuera:
No, no, it was tricky. It fooled me. Almost as easy as running a boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom. It’s your arm that offbeats a lot, you know? And trying to sing the melody while playing bass I was struggling.

Hannah:
Well Tem, you have a line of adoring fans… and I just want to say it’s been wonderful talking with you.

Temuera:
And she's a muso as well a bass player. So there you go.

Hannah:
Yes, shoutout!

Temuera:
I found out more about you. You’re not just a pretty face.

Hannah:
Thank you, stop it.

Temuera:
And you’re a simple, beautiful woman making your way in the galaxy.

Hannah:
Thank you so much. Thank you. Appreciate it, appreciate it.

Temuera:
Tēnā koe. Come to New Zealand.

Hannah:
Thank you, yes. Come to New Zealand yes.

Temuera:
The Polynesian Spa. It’s waiting for you. It’s waiting.
I’ll be there. I’ll be there.
Wear a bathing costume, it’s not one of those naked ones!