Cliff Curtis

Clifford Vivian Devon Curtis (born 1968) is a New Zealand actor and film producer. After working in theatre, he made his film debut in Jane Campion's Oscar-winning film The Piano (1993), followed by a breakout role in the drama Once Were Warriors (1994). He has won four New Zealand Film Awards, Best Actor for Jubilee (2000) and The Dark Horse (2014) - which also earned him the Asia Pacific Screen Award - and Best Supporting Actor for Desperate Remedies (1993) and Whale Rider (2002).

Curtis' international film credits include Three Kings, Bringing Out the Dead (both 1999), Blow, Training Day (both 2001), Collateral Damage (2002), Sunshine, Live Free or Die Hard (both 2007), Push, Crossing Over (both 2009), Colombiana (2011), Hobbs & Shaw, and Doctor Sleep (both 2019), also portraying James "Mac" Mackreides in The Meg (2018) and Meg 2: The Trench (2023) and Tonowari in the Avatar series (2022–present).

He had television series roles on NBC's Trauma and ABC's Body of Proof and Missing. From 2015 to 2017, he portrayed Travis Manawa on the AMC horror drama series Fear the Walking Dead. Curtis is also the co-owner of the independent New Zealand production company Whenua Films.

Clifford Vivian Devon Curtis was born in Rotorua in 1968. He is one of eight children born to George Curtis, an amateur dancer. He is of Māori descent; his tribal affiliations are Te Arawa and Ngāti Hauiti.^{[citation needed]} His uncle was Toby Curtis, a prominent Māori educator and leader.

As a boy he studied mau rākau, a traditional Māori form of taiaha fighting, with Māori elder Mita Mohi on Mokoia Island, which nurtured his abilities as a performer in kapa haka. Curtis later performed as a breakdancer and competitively in rock 'n' roll dance competitions.

He received his secondary education at Edmund Rice College, Rotorua. Curtis graduated from Toi Whakaari in 1989 with a diploma in acting.

Curtis started acting in amateur productions of musicals Fiddler on the Roof and Man of La Mancha with the Kapiti Players and the Mantis Cooperative Theatre Company, before attending the New Zealand Drama School and Teatro Dimitri Scuola in Switzerland. He worked at a number of New Zealand theatre companies, including Downstage, Mercury Theatre, Bats Theatre, and Centre Point. His stage roles include Happy End, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Othello, The Cherry Orchard, Porgy and Bess, Weeds, Macbeth, Serious Money, and The End of the Golden Weather.

His first feature film role was a small part in the Oscar-nominated Jane Campion film The Piano. He went on to win attention in Once Were Warriors, one of the most successful films released on New Zealand screens; the line "Uncle fucken Bully" referring to Curtis's character spoken by "Jake the Muss", played by Temuera Morrison, became one of New Zealand film's most memorable and quoted lines, as well as being part of the "Kiwiana" trend. He played Kahu in the short-film Kahu & Maia, a contemporary depiction of a Ngāti Kahungunu and Ngāti Rongomaiwahine legend. He played a seducer in the melodrama Desperate Remedies. In 2000 Curtis starred as family man Billy Williams in Jubilee, before playing father to the lead character in the international hit Whale Rider.