Hailing from New Zealand, the talented Te Ao o Hinepehinga recently starred alongside Jason Momoa, playing his wife Kupuohi, in the highly anticipated ‘Chief of War’. The Apple TV+ drama series is set on the shores of Hawaii and stars the likes of Luciane Buchanan, Cliff Curtis and Temuera Morrison. Based on the true story of Ka’iana, it is set in the 18th century, focusing on the unification of the Hawaiian Islands to save them from the threat of colonisation.
The recipient of a Bachelor of Arts in Performance Art, Music Theatre from the National Academy of Singing and Dramatic Arts, Te has appeared in a variety of productions. She made her television debut in ‘Black Hands’ as Gina, appeared in ‘Head High’ and was the lead in ‘Breakwater’, where she played Mai.
In an interview with House of Solo, Te sheds light on ‘Chief of War’, working with Jason Momoa, her future goals and more!
Providing insight into the role of Kupuohi, she says: ‘I guess, the best way to describe Kupuohi is look to your mothers. They’re a great example of this fierce, kind of stoic energy that she carries through the family of ‘Chief of War’ show.’
During the interview, she also reflected on her memories of working on the project and talked about the tumultuous weather. ‘There were cyclones happening, we had volcanic eruptions while we were filming. There are people travelling between Hawaii and Aotearoa, so it’s been a real journey to be able to actually see the final product and see how everyone gets to experience that and it’s amazing, because it’s such a chaotic, war-driven show, that I feel like the audience really understands the war that we fought to get this show actually filmed as well.’
Continuing to focus on the character of Kupuohi, Te discusses the inspirations she pulled from, when playing the character. She talks about a conversation she had with fellow cast member Luciane and she studied around the Kapu system. ‘I think there were a lot of people that I ended up pulling from, Lucianeand I talked about it when the show was coming out, because of the history, and the history being told from a male perspective, there isn’t a lot of resources or sources available to tell you all of the things you want to know about these women.’ She goes on to say: ‘and Kupuohi, I was very lucky, there were bits and pieces and smatterings through the history books that gave you a general sense of her, I guess, value system. But what that looks like from an Indigenous perspective, pre-Western influence of social culture, is a different thing. So I did a lot of study around the Kapu system, which was I suppose the rule book of society is probably the simplest way you can describe it and that was a big inspiration.’
In the interview, Te explains that it was important for her to draw inspiration from a Hawaiian woman and not just her own influences in Aotearoa, where Te was born. So a woman who she looked to first, before she met a lot of the consultants, was Haunani-Kay Trask, an activist around the reclamation of living authentically as Kanaka and what that looks like in modern society and she has done a lot of powerful talks. Te said: ‘I actually watched everything I could find on the internet, just trying to mimic her stature, her behaviour, because I think in a lot of ways, I saw what Kupuohi’s value system and her priorities were in the history books and in modern society, I can totally see this kind of energy, so it was really cool to be able to use that’.
Talking about when she first got the role, she explained: ‘Oh, it was a very emotional experience’.
She later continues: ‘it was one of those things where being Māori, being Polynesian, I feel a deep connection to Hawaii. But I’ve always known that their history is independent of ours and connected to ours. And because of the oral history practices of our Polynesian people, I also understood the significance and the importance of our indigenous storytelling, because it is the way that we keep our history alive. And so I had a really hard time trying to feel worthy of getting a role like this. My mother kept telling me, ‘look, they’ve asked for support from their wider Polynesian family, who are we to say no? That’s not who we are as Polynesians. When your cousins call, you answer the call.’’
Moving into her time working alongside Jason Momoa, in response to being asked what it’s like to work with him, she says: ‘Working with Jason is an absolute firecracker of a time. That man has so much energy, I genuinely don’t understand where it comes from.’
She even shared that ‘he doesn’t drink coffee either’.
When talking about some of her favourite scene, she explained: ‘I think, to be honest, working with him and our family was probably some of my favourite scenes, because we really just, I mean, that’s the beauty of Polynesia, we all feel this deep connection to each other and so when we got put in a room together or on a set together, the dynamic just kind of came about naturally and so when the cameras aren’t rolling we’re screwing with each other, we’re making jabs. There’s moments where I think we’re all standing behind the cameras, they were trying to capture one of us pulling faces and trying to get people to break character. Yeah, there was a real sense of authenticity to that family dynamic that just makes me happy to think about it.’
With her roots in New Zealand, we moved onto the topic of what it was like growing up in New Zealand and what inspired her to be where she is today and pursue acting as a career.
‘Where I am today, is not where I expected to end up, I’m a theatre kid’. She said she ‘grew up in a really rural town’ and it was pure chance that she found this.
She explains: ‘I grew up in a village where drama isn’t common, and the only form of performing arts is traditional Māori performing arts and that I loved. So purely out of chance, we got a teacher, a new deputy principal, who offered drama, got dragged in, fell in love, which was to the surprise of many of my friends and family, because I myself am more of a book nerd. But theatre was where I wanted to end up and so I always had this goal, my dream, my ultimate dream and it still is, my dream today is to actually end up on The Globe Theatre stage.’
Having described herself as a ‘book nerd’, we asked her if she could act and be the character in a book, who would she love to bring to life.
She shared that it would be Denna from the book ‘The Name of the Wind’ in ‘The Kingkiller Chronicles’ by Patrick Rothfuss and Te said that it was the ‘most brilliant book’ and she’s read it four times. She then goes on to talk about Tolkien and compares him with the author Patrick.
‘We talk about Tolkien as this incredible writer, because he created a world, but he created a universe, dialects, accents, histories and his ability to build that world is what it makes it so, I guess, just addictive to read and watch. Patrick Rothfuss has done that with Kingkiller Chronicles to the point where I pick up the book and read it again and again and again. And Denna, she’s a little spicy, she’s very ladylike because it’s of the period and time, but there’s a spice and a freedom and wild nature to her that just makes you so interested and I’d love to just live in Patrick Rothfuss’s world when he finally finishes book three. Seriously, can you publish that, please, Patrick Rothfuss publish book three’.
At the end of the interview, Te talks about some of her future goals. ‘I’m really interested in the connection between creativity and mental wellness, so I’m working towards creating a program in Aotearoa for young people to explore their own stories, cultural, historical, familial and everything in between. Culture and history are such incredible teachers and the arts can be a beautiful way to explore it. I’m interested in how we can use that and the new storytelling medium of TikTok and YouTube to give practical skills that can be utilized across multiple industries. From marketing and advertisement to creative and critical research, there is so much potential to use these new tools and our next generation are right in the thick of it. I want to take TikTok dances and sound bites and turn that interest into something our next generation can use to mould this world for the better.’
