Stuart Rutherford

About

Occasional actor and longtime film collaborator, his Twitter has over 4,000 followers. His Flight of the Conchords pals cast him in their break-through independent mockumentary about a house of dysfunctional vampires, What We Do in the Shadows. His character, Stu, is the only human amongst this coven of bickering misfits. Stu is the heart of the film, and during the years that the movie toured the festival circuit, co-director of the film Jemaine Clement said that after screenings, Stu the IT guy always received the loudest cheers and applause. 

Before Fame

Born in New Zealand and high school mate of Taika Waititi, they lived in a flat together after college; Stu worked as an IT technician and Taika was at the start of his film career. Stu eventually quit his coding job after Taika regularly hired him as a runner or production assistant on his first few productions.

Trivia

On the set of What We Do in the Shadows, the directors kept their mutual friend Stuart in the dark concerning the particulars of his roll in order to garner the most authentic performance for his mostly silent human character swept into this wild house of 4 vampires. He was unaware until the film was nearly wrapped that he was a significant part of the film, enough to be featured on the movie marketing poster.

Family Life

He is now based out of Manhattan, but his family remains in New Zealand. 

Associated With

He continues to work closely with Taika Waititi and collaborates with him on almost every film, the Dynamic Light technology he helped create was used in Thor: Ragnarok for the flashback sequence featuring Tessa Thompson's character last battles with the Valkyries.