Resource Sheet N: Drama

Local Heroes: MAUI Actor Tamati te Nohotu

Interview with MAUI lead actor, Tamati te Nohotu (who plays Maui), Fri 21 April 2006
1. You have the lead role of Maui – what helped you to win that role?
Knowing the director helped! But seriously, it helped to know and have a good relationship with the director and members of the production team and to have the whanaungatanga*. It meant I felt able to just call Tane up and really relate to him. I didn’t have to establish who I was.
Also, very important, was my experience working in the performing worlds, both Māori and Pakeha. The role of Maui has major demands and to be able to pull that off, you need experience. You also need experience to be able to take on a show that is this big.
[*Editor’s note: A guiding principle for the production of MAUI is whanaungatanga or “family-ness”. Everyone who is involved in the show is encouraged see each other as family and to give all the support and love and challenges that that involves.]
2. How is Maui like you?
He’s cheeky. And stubborn! He’s a rebel. A big part of Maui is that he has vision; he can see the big picture when maybe other people can’t.
Maui has a big heart. He has the ability to give to his whanau and his people, which is something that I try to do.
He has cool dreads! I’ll have those again soon.
And he’s really just a funky dude and I want to be a funky dude like him.
3. What do you like about Maui? And what don’t you like about him?
I love that he was so talented and so nurtured in his environment. He had lots of responsibility and lots of talent.
At times, he didn’t use his talents in the right way, he lost track of why he did things, because he was impatient and that was what ended up leading to his downfall. Impatience can be good and bad. It can help you to get things done, but it can lead you to do the wrong things too.
4. How did you prepare for the role of Maui?
I did lots of reading and researching, on the Internet and in libraries. I also talked to a lot of people. Because Maui is an actual ancestor/tipuna, so I talked to a lot of historians, people with an amazing amount of knowledge about Maui. All of that was how I prepared in my head to play Maui.
And then there was the physical preparation. I had to be super fit and healthy. I worked out and I ate really carefully. I trained very hard physically. I did martial arts, yoga, running, swimming, stretching, dancing (lots of contemporary dance) and kapa haka and taiaha.
5. What part of the show do you enjoy performing the most?
Mahi whai! [Weaving the ropes and the net to capture the sun god Ra.]
I enjoy it the most because I am on stage with almost all of the cast and we are all working, and playing, together.
6. What part of the show is the trickiest for you?
The entire show! But if I had to pick the hardest part it would be the pas de deux
[The dance between Maui and the aerial flame in the fire sequence in Mahuika’s cave. The flame drops down from the air in a harness and she and Maui dance together].
This is really hard technically, the dance steps, and with the music. And then there is the fact that my partner is flying!
7. Has anything every gone horribly wrong on stage?
Not on stage, no – and that’s pretty amazing!
One thing that did go wrong was in rehearsals when I fell out of the wire on my harness. That was pretty scary. It was the 3-D fly sequence, where Maui is in a harness with 4 ropes off from it and on the other end are four climbers pulling on the ropes so that I move backwards and forwards and up and down. I almost fell, but you know I felt so safe because I trusted the climbers totally to keep me safe.
8. Do you regard Maui as a hero?
Yes. Definitely.
9. What makes him a hero?
The fact that he was gifted with a lot of talent and that he mostly used his talent for good.
10. Do you think it is okay for heroes to make mistakes?
I don’t think that they could become heroes if they didn’t. Mistakes are what help you to learn.
Link: http://www.tki.org.nz/r/wick_ed/say/tangata_rongonui/archive_tamati.php