Cliff Curtis

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Birthday:

27 July 1968, Rotorua, New Zealand

Height:

184 cm

Cliff Curtis was born in Rotorua, New Zealand, on July 27, 1968.He is of New Zealand Maori descent (with Ngati Hauiti and Te Arawa tribal affiliations). He enrolled at the New Zealand Drama School, and then the Teatro Dmitri Scoula in Switzerland.After returning to New Zealand from Europe, he was cast in The Piano (1993). Subsequent roles in New Zealand include the camp melodrama Desperate Remedies (1993), the grueling urban drama Once Were Warriors (1994), and the lighthearted comedy Jubilee (2000).In Hollywood, Curtis has played a range of different roles and ethnicities in films. He plays a Colombian in Blow (2001), an Arab in Three Kings (1999) and The Insider (1999), a Latino in Training Day (2001) and Runaway Jury (2003), and a drug dealer of ambiguous ethnicity in Bringing Out the Dead (1999). However, he is probably best known for his role as Paikea's father Porourangi, in Whale Rider (2002). Show less «

(On Whale Rider) I've been waiting for this film for a long time. It's fun to go off and put on a disguise and pretend to be someone else, b...Show more »

(On Whale Rider) I've been waiting for this film for a long time. It's fun to go off and put on a disguise and pretend to be someone else, but to be able to get back to myself and my culture, that was just more than really nice, y'know - it was vital. Show less «

As an actor ... at some point you've got to forget that the crew's there in order to do your job.