After decades in Hollywood of playing characters of just about every ethnicity except his own, attitudes are finally starting to change towards Māori actors, says Cliff Curtis. And he couldn't be happier about it, he says.
"They’re not asking me to be Hispanic or Middle Eastern or this indiscriminately brown person," the Rotorua native told TVNZ1's Te Karere. “They’re saying, ‘Oh, could you play this character as a Māori.’ I said, ‘Yup. Mean. Done.’ The last three, four projects they’ve wanted me to be a Māori, which is like a dream come true.”
Casting restrictions have never been a problem for Curtis in New Zealand, where he rose to fame with roles like Uncle Bully in Once Were Warriors. Even as his career started to take off in the US, he returned for Māori -based roles in critically acclaimed moves like Whale Rider and The Dark Horse.
In Hollywood, however, he has been more known for roles like Amir Abdulah in Three Kings, a Hispanic gangster named Smiley in Training Day and even a role as Pablo Escobar in Blow.
But something has recently changed, said Curtis, who stars in James Cameron’s upcoming Avatar sequels. For the film, he was asked to devise and perform a haka-like routine for his alien character.
Curtis gave guidance on how to include tails and other alien body parts into an otherworldly version of the Maori war dance.
“I'm in Hollywood and they want me to be a Māori – it doesn't get better than that for me,” he said. “And that's because being Māori is cool. It's not to say that being anything else is not, but it wasn't that way when I was a kid.”
Curtis discussed the changing attitudes while promoting a new docufilm about Merata Mita, who 30 years ago became the first indigenous woman in New Zealand to write and direct a feature-length film. He is an executive producer on the project.
“It wasn’t important for Merata to know that her legacy was being kept alive - I don't think she thought that way,” he said. “I think it was important for her that our legacy as Māori, as indigenous people of our nation, is a healthy one, and that we grow and we evolve as a society and we are included as a vital part of our nation.”
Curtis met Auckland students today, before he is recognised at the Kea World Class New Zealand Awards tonight.
Curtis considered Mita, who died in 2010, one of his biggest mentors.
“She just laid very clear tracks,” he explained. “She had incredible clarity about what was important, and I think the central part was that we need to be able to tell our story, and to tell our own stories. And she encouraged us to. She guided us in that process.”
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