Cliff Curtis

Cliff Curtis

Birth : 1968-07-27, Rotorua, North Island, New Zealand

History

Cliff Curtis  (born 27 July 1968) is a New Zealand actor who has had major roles in film, including The Piano, Whale Rider, and Blow, and most recently has appeared in NBC's television series Trauma. He is also co-owner of independent film production company Whenua Films. Curtis, ethnically Māori, has on film portrayed a range of ethnicities, including Latin American and Arab characters. He has appeared as a character actor in many Hollywood films, while in New Zealand he is usually the main star. Description above from the Wikipedia article Cliff Curtis, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia

Profile

Cliff Curtis
Cliff Curtis
Cliff Curtis
Cliff Curtis
Cliff Curtis

Movies

Avatar 5
Tonowari
Avatar 4
Tonowari
Avatar 3
Tonowari
The third entry in the Avatar franchise.
Meg 2: The Trench
James 'Mac' Mackreides
True Spirit
Ben Bryant
When the tenacious young sailor Jessica Watson sets out to be the youngest person to sail solo, nonstop and unassisted around the world, many expect her to fail. With the support of her sailing coach and mentor Ben Bryant and her parents, Jessica is determined to accomplish what was thought to be impossible, navigating some of the world’s most challenging stretches of ocean over the course of 210 days.
Avatar: The Way of Water
Tonowari
Set more than a decade after the events of the first film, learn the story of the Sully family (Jake, Neytiri, and their kids), the trouble that follows them, the lengths they go to keep each other safe, the battles they fight to stay alive, and the tragedies they endure.
Muru
Executive Producer
Inspired by actual events, MURU is the story of a local Police Sergeant 'Taffy' Tawharau (Cliff Curtis), who must choose between his badge and his people, when the Government launches an armed raid through his Ruatoki community, on a school day.
Muru
Community Sergeant ‘Taffy’ Tawharau
Inspired by actual events, MURU is the story of a local Police Sergeant 'Taffy' Tawharau (Cliff Curtis), who must choose between his badge and his people, when the Government launches an armed raid through his Ruatoki community, on a school day.
Murina
Javier
A teenage girl decides to replace her controlling father with his wealthy foreign friend during a weekend trip to the Adriatic Sea.
Reminiscence
Cyrus Booth
Nicolas Bannister, a rugged and solitary veteran living in a near-future Miami flooded by rising seas, is an expert in a dangerous occupation: he offers clients the chance to relive any memory they desire. His life changes when he meets a mysterious young woman named Mae. What begins as a simple matter of lost and found becomes a passionate love affair. But when a different client's memories implicate Mae in a series of violent crimes, Bannister must delve through the dark world of the past to uncover the truth about the woman he fell for.
Doctor Sleep
Billy Freeman
Still scarred by the trauma he endured as a child at the Overlook Hotel, Dan Torrance faces the ghosts of the past when he meets Abra, a courageous teen who desperately needs his help -- and who possesses a powerful extrasensory ability called the "shine".
Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw
Jonah Hobbs
Ever since US Diplomatic Security Service Agent Hobbs and lawless outcast Shaw first faced off, they just have traded smack talk and body blows. But when cyber-genetically enhanced anarchist Brixton's ruthless actions threaten the future of humanity, they join forces to defeat him.
Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen
Executive Producer
A documentary portrait of the pioneering indigenous filmmaker and activist Merata Mita and an intimate tribute from a son about his mother that delves into the life of the first woman from an Indigenous Nation to solely direct a film anywhere in the world. Known as the grandmother of Indigenous cinema, Merata’s independent political documentaries of the 1970s and 80s highlighted injustices for Māori people and often divided the country. Mita was fearless in her life, her activism and her art. Chronicling the director’s journey to decolonize the film and television screens of New Zealand and the world, the film documents her work, her early struggles with her family and her drive for social justice that often proved personally dangerous.
The Meg
'Mac'
A deep sea submersible pilot revisits his past fears in the Mariana Trench, and accidentally unleashes the seventy foot ancestor of the Great White Shark believed to be extinct.
Risen
Yeshua
Clavius, a powerful Roman military tribune, and his aide, Lucius, are tasked with solving the mystery of what happened to Jesus in the weeks following the crucifixion, in order to disprove the rumors of a risen Messiah and prevent an uprising in Jerusalem.
Last Knights
Lt. Cortez
When an evil emperor executes their leader, his band of knights – bound by duty and honour – embarks on a journey of vengeance that will not come to an end until they've destroyed their mortal foe.
The Dark Horse
Executive Producer
One-time Maori speed-chess champ, Genesis Potini, lives with a bi-polar disorder and must overcome prejudice and violence in the battle to save his struggling chess club, his family and ultimately, himself.
The Dark Horse
Genesis
One-time Maori speed-chess champ, Genesis Potini, lives with a bi-polar disorder and must overcome prejudice and violence in the battle to save his struggling chess club, his family and ultimately, himself.
Great Expectations
Executive Producer
Miss Havisham, a wealthy spinster who wears an old wedding dress and lives in the dilapidated Satis House, asks Pip's Uncle Pumblechook to find a boy to play with her adopted daughter Estella. Pip begins to visit Miss Havisham and Estella, with whom he falls in love, then Pip—a humble orphan—suddenly becomes a gentleman with the help of an unknown benefactor.
A Thousand Words
Dr. Sinja
Jack McCall is a fast-talking literary agent, who can close any deal, any time, any way. He has set his sights on New Age guru Dr. Sinja for his own selfish purposes. But Dr. Sinja is on to him, and Jack’s life comes unglued after a magical Bodhi tree mysteriously appears in his backyard. With every word Jack speaks, a leaf falls from the tree and he realizes that when the last leaf falls, both he and the tree are toast. Words have never failed Jack McCall, but now he’s got to stop talking and conjure up some outrageous ways to communicate or he’s a goner.
Saving Grace - Te Whakarauora Tangata
Himself
Saving Grace - Te Whakarauora Tangata is the final work of director Merata Mita, who passed away suddenly before the film could be completed. The film addresses some of the deepest and most distressing issues Māori communities face, and shows how extraordinary creative solutions are being provided by Māori communities themselves. Mita asks Maori men to front up to some grim realities by talking openly and honestly about the violence and abuse that has plagued their communities for many years. The film is a personal response to this violence, with Mita making a case for a return to an older model of Maori manhood, when men were the ones who sweetly sang the children to sleep. “Merata intended the documentary to count in ways that mattered deeply to her and to change perceptions of abuse and violence by using themes of responsibility, redemption, revitalisation, forgiveness and, most of all, love.” - Carol Hirschfeld, Māori Television.
Saving Grace - Te Whakarauora Tangata
Co-Producer
Saving Grace - Te Whakarauora Tangata is the final work of director Merata Mita, who passed away suddenly before the film could be completed. The film addresses some of the deepest and most distressing issues Māori communities face, and shows how extraordinary creative solutions are being provided by Māori communities themselves. Mita asks Maori men to front up to some grim realities by talking openly and honestly about the violence and abuse that has plagued their communities for many years. The film is a personal response to this violence, with Mita making a case for a return to an older model of Maori manhood, when men were the ones who sweetly sang the children to sleep. “Merata intended the documentary to count in ways that mattered deeply to her and to change perceptions of abuse and violence by using themes of responsibility, redemption, revitalisation, forgiveness and, most of all, love.” - Carol Hirschfeld, Māori Television.
Colombiana
Emilio
After witnessing her parents’ murder as a child in Bogota, Cataleya Restrepo grows up to be a stone-cold assassin. She works for her uncle as a hitman by day, but her personal time is spent engaging in vigilante murders that she hopes will lead her to her ultimate target: the mobster responsible for her parents' death.
The Last Airbender
Fire Lord Ozai
The story follows the adventures of Aang, a young successor to a long line of Avatars, who must put his childhood ways aside and stop the Fire Nation from enslaving the Water, Earth and Air nations.
Boy
Producer
Boy, an 11-year-old child and devout Michael Jackson fan who lives on the east coast of New Zealand in 1984, gets a chance to know his absentee criminal father, who has returned to find a bag of money he buried years ago.
Crossing Over
Hamid Baraheri
Immigrants from around the world enter Los Angeles every day, with hopeful visions of a better life, but little notion of what that life may cost. Their desperate scenarios test the humanity of immigration enforcement officers. In Crossing Over, writer-director Wayne Kramer explores the allure of the American dream, and the reality that immigrants find – and create -- in 21st century L.A.
Push
Hook Waters
After his father, an assassin, is brutally murdered, Nick Gant vows revenge on Division, the covert government agency that dabbles in psychic warfare and experimental drugs. Hiding in Hong Kong's underworld, Nick assembles a band of rogue psychics dedicated to destroying Division. Together with Cassie, a teenage clairvoyant, Nick goes in search of a missing girl and a stolen suitcase that could be the key to accomplishing their mutual goal.
10,000 BC
Tic-Tic
A prehistoric epic that follows a young mammoth hunter's journey through uncharted territory to secure the future of his tribe.
Coffee and Allah
Executive Producer
When a cup of coffee is a gift from Allah.
Eagle vs Shark
Producer
Love blossoms for Lily over double Meaty Boy burgers at mid-day when uber-computer nerd Jarrod comes in and leaves with free extra large fries. After gatecrashing Jarrod's party and proving her skills on the game console, Lily goes down to Jarrod's home town with him so he can settle an old score with a past school bully.
Live Free or Die Hard
Bowman
John McClane is back and badder than ever, and this time he's working for Homeland Security. He calls on the services of a young hacker in his bid to stop a ring of Internet terrorists intent on taking control of America's computer infrastructure.
Inside The Fountain: Death and Rebirth
Himself
A behind-the-scenes documentary about the making of Darren Aronofsky's ‘The Fountain’.
Fracture
Detective Flores
A husband is on trial for the attempted murder of his wife, in what is seemingly an open/shut case for the ambitious district attorney trying to put him away. However, there are surprises for both around every corner, and, as a suspenseful game of cat-and-mouse is played out, each must manipulate and outwit the other.
Sunshine
Searle
Fifty years into the future, the sun is dying, and Earth is threatened by arctic temperatures. A team of astronauts is sent to revive the Sun — but the mission fails. Seven years later, a new team is sent to finish the mission as mankind’s last hope.
The Fountain
Captain Ariel
Spanning over one thousand years, and three parallel stories, The Fountain is a story of love, death, spirituality, and the fragility of our existence in this world.
River Queen
Wiremu
An intimate story set during the 1860s in which a young Irish woman Sarah and her family find themselves on both sides of the turbulent wars between British and Maori during the British colonization of New Zealand.
Spooked
Mort Whitman
Spooked is a contemporary conspiracy thriller arising from the mysterious death of Kevin Jones, who thought he was just buying second-hand computers, until he looked at the data left on the discs. Was kevin murdered or did he simply get drunk and crash his car? Investigating journalist Mort Whitman says he will find out, even if it kills him. The film is based on material from the book 'The Paradise Conspiracy' by Ian Wishart.
Fracture
Inspector Franklin
A young solo mother loves her son and his needs are formost, but she still has room in her heart for her very broken brother, even as her fundamentalist mother rejects her. But when the brother is responsible for a woman's broken neck, during his burglary of her house, families are changed as crisis amplifies and at times the young mother seems to be the only adult.
Heinous Crime
Pizza Delivery Man
Two players, one heinous crime to be revealed. Wellington Winner of 48 Hours Furious Filmmaking 2004.
Tama Tū
Producer
Six Māori Battalion soldiers camped in Italian ruins wait for night to fall. In the silence, the bros-in-arms distract themselves with jokes. A tohu (sign) brings them back to reality, and they gather to say a karakia before returning to the fray. Director Taika Waititi describes the soldiers as young men with "a special bond, strengthened by their character, their culture and each other." Shot in the rubble of the old Wellington Hospital, Tama Tū won international acclaim. Invited to over 40 international festivals, its many awards included honourable mentions at Sundance and Berlin.
Whale Rider
Porourangi
On the east coast of New Zealand, the Whangara people believe their presence there dates back a thousand years or more to a single ancestor, Paikea, who escaped death when his canoe capsized by riding to shore on the back of a whale. From then on, Whangara chiefs, always the first-born, always male, have been considered Paikea's direct descendants. Pai, an 11-year-old girl in a patriarchal New Zealand tribe, believes she is destined to be the new chief. But her grandfather Koro is bound by tradition to pick a male leader. Pai loves Koro more than anyone in the world, but she must fight him and a thousand years of tradition to fulfill her destiny.
Runaway Jury
Frank Herrera
A juror on the inside and a woman on the outside manipulate a court trial involving a major gun manufacturer.
Point of Origin
Mike Camello
An arson investigator searching for the perpetrator of a string of deadly fires in 1980s California.
Collateral Damage
Claudio Perrini
Firefighter Gordon Brewer is plunged into the complex and dangerous world of international terrorism after he loses his wife and child in a bombing credited to Claudio 'The Wolf' Perrini.
The Majestic
The Evil But Handsome Prince Khalid
Set in 1951, a blacklisted Hollywood writer gets into a car accident, loses his memory and settles down in a small town where he is mistaken for a long-lost son.
Training Day
Smiley
On his first day on the job as a narcotics officer, a rookie cop works with a rogue detective who isn't what he appears.
Blow
Pablo Escobar
A boy named George Jung grows up in a struggling family in the 1950's. His mother nags at her husband as he is trying to make a living for the family. It is finally revealed that George's father cannot make a living and the family goes bankrupt. George does not want the same thing to happen to him, and his friend Tuna, in the 1960's, suggests that he deal marijuana. He is a big hit in California in the 1960's, yet he goes to jail, where he finds out about the wonders of cocaine. As a result, when released, he gets rich by bringing cocaine to America. However, he soon pays the price.
Jubilee
Billy Williams
Billy (Cliff Curtis) is trying to organize the biggest celebration the town of Waimatua has even seen - the 75th Jubilee of their school. In doing this, feckless Billy is trying to redeem himself in the eyes of his family, especially his frustrated wife Pauline (Theresa Healey). However trouble arrives with the return of a local former All Blacks Captain, an old flame of Pauline's.
The Insider
Sheikh Fadlallah
Tells the true story of a 60 Minutes television series exposé of the tobacco industry, as seen through the eyes of a real tobacco executive, Jeffrey Wigand.
Bringing Out the Dead
Cy Coates
Once called "Father Frank" for his efforts to rescue lives, Frank Pierce sees the ghosts of those he failed to save around every turn. He has tried everything he can to get fired, calling in sick, delaying taking calls where he might have to face one more victim he couldn't help, yet cannot quit the job on his own.
Three Kings
Amir Abdullah
A group of American soldiers stationed in Iraq at the end of the Gulf War find a map they believe will take them to a huge cache of stolen Kuwaiti gold hidden near their base, and they embark on a secret mission that's destined to change everything.
Virus
Hiko
When the crew of an American tugboat boards an abandoned Russian research vessel, the alien life form aboard regards them as a virus which must be destroyed.
Six Days Seven Nights
Kip
When Quinn, a grouchy pilot living the good life in the South Pacific, agrees to transfer a savvy fashion editor, Robin, to Tahiti, he ends up stranded on a deserted island with her after their plane crashes. The pair avoid each other at first, until they're forced to team up to escape from the island -- and some pirates who want their heads.
Deep Rising
Mamooli
A group of heavily armed hijackers board a luxury ocean liner in the South Pacific Ocean to loot it, only to do battle with a series of large-sized, tentacled, man-eating sea creatures who have taken over the ship first.
Chicken
Zeke
On the premise that his albums will sell better if he is dead, an aging pop-singer fakes his own death. True enough, the money rolls in, but no one can get their hands on it because of the seven year waiting period before a missing person can be declared legally dead. However, a crazed animal rights terrorist, who knows he isn't dead, is trying to kill him, because of the singer's advertisements for fried chicken restaurants. Eventually, it turns out that the singer's manager is paying the terrorist to kill him.
Hercules in the Underworld
Nessus
When villagers begin disappearing it is discovered that they had fallen through a crack in the earth which goes straight to Hades. Hercules once again comes to the rescue and faces one of his most difficult challenges, and must prove himself as a man as well as a god. "Hercules in the Underworld" is the fourth made for TV movie in the series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.
Rapa Nui
Short Ears
Inter-tribal rivalry leads to a competition to erect a huge statue (moai) in record time before Make can take part in the race to retrieve the egg of a Sooty Tern. The reward for winning this race is to rule the island for one year.
Once Were Warriors
Bully
A drama about a Maori family living in Auckland, New Zealand. Lee Tamahori tells the story of Beth Heke’s strong will to keep her family together during times of unemployment and abuse from her violent and alcoholic husband.
Desperate Remedies
Fraser
In a town called Hope on the edge of Britain's empire, desperations clash: the beautiful Dorothea Brook is desperate to free her pregnant sister Rose from the clutches of Fraser, a fortune hunter. A local politician, William Poyner, is desperate for cash and thinks marriage to Dorothea will save him. Dorothea hires Lawrence Hayes, a rough but handsome Argonaut, to bribe Fraser with jewels and to marry Rose; Hayes desperately loves Dorothea and may marry Rose to stay close to her. But Dorothea has a lover, the ravishing Anne Cooper, who encourages the match with Poyser to give the lovers cover. Are these remedies, each desperate in its turn, going to make anyone happy?
The Piano
Mana
After a long voyage from Scotland, pianist Ada McGrath and her young daughter, Flora, are left with all their belongings, including a piano, on a New Zealand beach. Ada, who has been mute since childhood, has been sold into marriage to a local man named Alisdair Stewart. Making little attempt to warm up to Alisdair, Ada soon becomes intrigued by his Maori-friendly acquaintance, George Baines, leading to tense, life-altering conflicts.