Capital Times movie reviewer Dan Slevin is a busy man for a mere mortal. He talks to us about how he does it, and The Immortals, his latest project.

CAPITAL Times reviewer Dan Slevin has watched every commercial movie released in New Zealand since December 2006 except two.
He missed Beverly Hills Chihuahua and Flicker because of time restraints.
But that won’t stop him from now on. “Now it’s become OCD*, I can’t not watch a movie – although sometimes it’s more trouble than it’s worth,” he jokes.
In what ought to be another life, Slevin works full-time for Downstage, organises the 48 Hour Film Festival in Wellington each year, and is going back to the stage.
The play, The Immortals, which features in the Fringe Festival, is important to him on a number of levels.
“I haven’t acted for 20 years, so this is the 20th anniversary of the last time I pretended to be someone else,” he says. “I then directed one show in 1994, which was this one, The Immortals. I never managed to get the script out of my system and I wanted to come back to it with different actors to see how it changed. It never occurred to me that I could be one of those actors.”
Slevin says preparing for the role, where practice takes up his lunch-hours, has shed a new light on his film reviewing, and he now appreciates how hard it is to act.
“Reviewers often take things for granted,” he says. “One day I’m going to make a film, because I think it’s really good to test yourself. It’s all very well to tell someone else what they’re doing is wrong.”
The Immortals was a short story in Einstein’s Monsters, a book written by Martin Amis, and was never intended for the stage.
It is a dramatic monologue narrated by the world’s only immortal, talking of his experiences since the birth of the earth, up until the point where humans threaten its survival.
“He waited for millions of years for company, and when that comes along, the company ruins everything. He’s pissed off that he will have to be alone again – he takes it personally,” Slevin laughs. “When I first read [the story] I wanted to shut my eyes and listen to somebody reading it to me, which is where I got the idea from.”
The play will take place every Thursday through Saturday during Fringe in the Pit Bar of BATS Theatre. Slevin says it makes a welcome change from when it was first performed on the main stage in 1994 at BATS.
“One day I was sitting in the Pit and thought ‘this is it, this is perfect’,” he says. “It’s a great size and shape, and it’s intimate. I can imagine crazy people spinning long yarns there.”
And, for his character in The Immortals, Slevin has been carefully cultivating a beard since September last year. Although his girlfriend is a fan, he can’t wait to be able to “tidy myself up again”.
People have commented he looks like Willy Apiata in the infamous “paparazzi” shot that appeared in New Zealand newspapers. At least that means he must look more staunch, he says.
Slevin says his goal in life is to do everything he possibly can. Sometimes he envies his friends who went to University, became lawyers, bought a house and had a family.
He still doesn’t own a house, and has gone broke twice in 20 years. He doesn’t have much free time, and has to practise extremely good organisational skills to fit in his full-time job, seeing seven movies a week, as well as rehearsal for The Immortals.
“It’s a military exercise and you have to be super efficient. I don’t watch TV, I don’t drink so I don’t spend aimless nights in bars. I don’t want to waste a minute,” he admits.
Slevin plans to travel the world, attend Film Festivals, and make it to America’s mid-west, which appeals to his love of Western music and films.
Most importantly, however, Slevin is happy.
“My goal is when I die, and someone reads the list of things I’ve done, it’s so long people have to leave – they say ‘I need to catch a bus now’,” he laughs. “But there’s a long list of things still to do, and there’s a lot of time left to do them in.”
The Immortals, BATS Theatre Pit Bar, Thursday through Saturday, from February 11–27.

*OCD - Obsessive compulsive disorder.