Kiwi acting royalty Cliff Curtis doesn’t like the red carpet.
“I’ve got good mates who love all that sort of stuff – they’ve got their gear all ready, got their hair done. That’s awesome, but it’s not really my thing,” he shrugs.
“I just enjoy working – it’s my craft. I like the industry, the people I work with, and the crews. I produce, I get behind the camera. The celebrity side is not my bag.”
But like it or not, the Rotorua-based actor’s back in the global spotlight.
Cliff, 57, stars in and is a co-producer of Chief Of War, the new Apple TV+ series about pre-contact Hawai’i. It’s been coined “the new Game Of Thrones”.
Stream Chief of War now on Apple TV+ with a 7 day FREE trial. Subscribe here.
Playing Chiefs with Jason Momoa
Cliff plays one of several chiefs in the epic $540m series, which also stars Hollywood heavy hitter Jason Momoa.
“There are a few twists and turns,” reveals Cliff.
“Tem [Temuera Morrison] plays another chief who’s a real manipulator. Tem’s perfect for it. He’s nearly 10 years my senior and still looking sharp. He’s a proud man – perfect for playing a king.”
Cliff jumped at the chance to join the ambitious series.
“Jason’s a real bro and Tem’s there too,” he explains.
“It was a good opportunity to tell the whole Hawaiian story – it’s never really been told. No one would have if it wasn’t for Jason. Someone brought him the idea, he cooked up the series and Apple backed it. I thought, ‘Yep, I’ll jump in that waka.’”
Telling Hawai’i’s untold history
Cliff is quietly passionate about showcasing a different image of the islands.
“People know Hawai’i for golf or tacky resorts,” he shares.
“Pre-contact, it was amazing – a sustainable kingdom, a million Hawaiians. You see it depicted as some shacks on a hill and a few fires, very primitive, but that’s not how it was. Until now, that hasn’t been captured in that way.”
Interestingly, the series was filmed mostly in New Zealand, but Cliff spent time in Hawai’i, where he opted to stay in a tent on the beach, with a campervan for back-up, after a storm wiped out his tent one time.
“Each day after filming, everyone else went back to a hotel an hour away, but I stayed at the beach with some of the local Hawaiians,” he tells.
“It was the best. I’m a bit of an extremist. Years ago, I’d stay out in caves, fast for two to four days, not cook and not do anything. Now I’m an old man with responsibilities, I can’t do that any more!”
Staying grounded in the spotlight
Surprisingly, Cliff says he doesn’t often watch his own performances when they hit the screen.
“Once I’ve done my mahi [work], I go home and get told what to do there. I tend to self-disassociate – it’s a good way to stay grounded.”
Cliff attended a Chief Of War screening in Hawai’i, then flew straight to California for something entirely different – a week at Stanford University, joining 30 leaders from across the globe in discussions about the future of Aotearoa.
“It was all these business leaders, futurists, asking, ‘What’s the future for our country? What do we need?’” he reveals.
“It was awesome. I’d just come from Hawai’i, from the ancient past – and then the next week, I’m at Stanford looking ahead!”
Cliff and singer Bic Runga attended as representatives of the creatives of New Zealand, and he was there to share a project of his own: Bloxx, a housing initiative aimingbto combat homelessness by offering an alternative to mortgages.
“The housing market crisis is a big deal,” he reflects.
“I grew up in a country where we didn’t have homelessness. It just makes me really uncomfortable. I can help my family – but that’s not enough. Bloxx is a good solution.”
Bloxx, of which Cliff is on the advisory board, uses private investor funding to purchase homes upfront. Customers move in with a 1% deposit and make weekly payments similar to rent pricing – no mortgage, no interest – and build equity at a faster rate than traditional home-ownership paths.
Giving back through bloxx
“A lot of addressing a cause is just about combining curiosity with generosity,” says Cliff.
“Bloxx is what I want to do to help the housing situation in New Zealand.”
He says the idea of spending a week at one of the world’s most famous universities was hilarious to him – “I left school at 14” – but he’s committed to staying informed and says he prefers to be in GSD Mode: Get Shit Done.
“There’s a lot of worry about AI right now,” he says.
“Such as how are we going to deal with it? I guess I need to learn, so I do. I don’t want to just sit on the sidelines, worrying. That’s not me.” He says he prefers to stay busy – producing, backing new talent and building futures.
“Acting is in the limelight and one aspect of the craft,” he muses.
“As an actor, you’re always on a journey looking for a job or a contract. I’d rather be the one creating the job and creating the contracts. If the project is interesting and if the people are cool, I’m in.”
Life on Lake Rotoiti
Closer to home, Cliff lives on the shores of Rotorua’s Lake Rotoiti with his whānau. His daughter (he also has three sons) helped coordinate this interview but is a filmmaker in her own right.
“She’s not actually a publicist, she’s just helping me out,” he says.
“She’s clever. She just graduated from Victoria and is editing two short films. She calls me Cliff for this work, which I find amusing – and a little weird – but I get it. She’s got to draw a line.”
He recently hosted co-star Jason in Rotorua, showing him around and introducing him to the mayor, who made Jason an honorary citizen.
“He loves Aotearoa,” says Cliff of his friend.
“We went to Matauri Bay, Queenstown and Waita¯kere. He’s just a great adventurer.”
What’s next for Cliff Curtis
As for what’s next, Cliff has a few projects quietly underway. Avatar 3: Fire And Ash, in which he reprises his role as Tonowari, is due out in cinemas in December. Whether he will hit the publicity trail remains uncertain.
“I get told by people, even my kids, that I should do more of that side of things, so I do what I need to do,” he shares.
“But it’s never been my focus. I just enjoy the work – the craft. The rest of it’s never really been for me.”
Stream Chief of War now on Apple TV+ with a 7 day FREE trial. Subscribe here.
