Cliff Curtis Biography

Clifford Vivian Devon "Cliff" Curtis (born 27 July 1968) is a New Zealand actor whose film credits include The Dark Horse (2014), Whale Rider (2002), Blow (2001), and Once Were Warriors (1994). He's also had television series roles on NBC's Trauma and Body of Proof, and ABC's Missing. He currently plays Travis, a lead character on the AMC horror-drama series Fear the Walking Dead, a companion series of The Walking Dead. Ethnically M?ori, his many character roles have included a range of ethnicities, such as Latin American and Arab. Curtis is co-owner of the independent New Zealand production company Whenua Films.

Early life

Curtis, one of nine children, was born in Rotorua, in the North Island of New Zealand, and is the son of an amateur dancer. Curtis is of M?ori descent; his tribal affiliations are Te Arawa and Ng?ti Hauiti.

As a boy he studied mau r?kau, a traditional M?ori form of taiaha fighting, with M?ori elder Mita Mohi on Mokoia Island, which nurtured his abilities as a performer in kapa haka. Curtis later performed as a breakdancer and then competitively in rock 'n' roll dance competitions. He received his secondary education at Western Heights High School, Rotorua.

New Zealand career

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 Scoula 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 soil and the line "Uncle f**ken Bully" whom Cliff Curtis played and spoken by "Jake the Muss" Temuera Morrison, became one of New Zealand films most memorable and quoted lines, as well as being part of the "Kiwiana" zeitgeist. He also played a seducer in the melodrama Desperate Remedies. In 2000 Curtis starred as family man Billy Williams in Jubilee, before playing father to the title character in the international hit Whale Rider.

In 2004 with producer Ainsley Gardiner, Curtis formed independent film production company Whenua Films. The goals of the company are to support the growth of the New Zealand indigenous filmmaking scene, and support local short filmmakers. He and Gardiner were appointed to manage the development and production of films for the Short Films Fund for 2005-06 by the New Zealand Film Commission. They have produced several shorts under the new company banner, notably Two Cars, One Night, which received an Academy Award nomination in 2005, and Hawaiki by director Mike Jonathan in 2006. Both short films circulated through many of the prestigious international film festivals like the Berlinale.

At the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, Miramax Films bought US distribution rights to their first feature film, a relationship comedy titled Eagle vs Shark, directed by Taika Waititi. Waititi's follow-up feature Boy, also from Whenua Films, went on to become the highest grossing New Zealand film released on its own soil.

In 2014, Curtis played the lead role in The Dark Horse, which the National Radio review called "one of the greatest New Zealand films ever made." The New Zealand Herald praised him for his "towering performance" as real-life Gisborne speed chess player and coach Genesis Potini, who died in 2011. Curtis studied chess and deliberately put on weight for the role.

International career

Curtis has appeared in films such as Martin Scorsese's Bringing Out the Dead (1999), Three Kings (1999), the drug drama Blow (2001) with Johnny Depp, Training Day (2001), Collateral Damage (2002), Live Free or Die Hard (2007), Sunshine (2007), Push (2009), and "Colombiana" (2011). In M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender (2010), he played the main villain, Fire Lord Ozai. Curtis portrayed Lt. Cortez in the film Last Knights (2015) and Jesus Christ in the film Risen (2016).

In the NBC TV drama Trauma, he played daredevil flight medic Reuben "Rabbit" Palchuck. On December 4, 2014, it was officially announced that Curtis had been cast as Travis Manawa, a leading male role of the AMC TV series Fear the Walking Dead, the official spin-off of The Walking Dead.

Personal life

Curtis guards his personal life closely. He married in late 2009 in a lavish private ceremony at his home marae.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role
1993	The Piano	Mana
1993	Desperate Remedies	Fraser
1994	Kahu & Maia
1994	Once Were Warriors	Bully
1994	Rapa Nui	Short Ears
1996	Chicken	Zeke
1996	Mananui	Mana
1998	Deep Rising	Mamooli
1998	Six Days, Seven Nights	Kip
1999	Virus	Hiko
1999	Three Kings	Amir Abdulah
1999	Bringing Out the Dead	Cy Coates
1999	The Insider	Sheikh Fadlallah (as Clifford Curtis)
2000	Jubilee	Billy Williams
2001	Blow	Pablo Escobar
2001	Training Day	Smiley
2001	The Majestic	The Evil But Handsome Prince Khalid
2002	Collateral Damage	Claudio El Lobo Perrini
2002	Whale Rider	Porourangi
2003	Runaway Jury	Frank Herrera
2004	Fracture	Detective Franklin
2004	Spooked	Mort Whitman
2004	Heinous Crime	Pizza delivery man
2005	The Pool	Husband
2005	River Queen	Wiremu
2006	The Fountain	Captain Ariel
2007	Sunshine	Searle
2007	Fracture	Detective Flores
2007	Live Free or Die Hard	FBI Deputy Director Miguel Bowman
2008	10,000 BC	Tic'Tic
2009	Push	Hook Waters
2009	Crossing Over	Hamid Baraheri
2010	The Last Airbender	Fire Lord Ozai
2011	Colombiana	Emilio Restrepo
2012	A Thousand Words	Dr. Sinja
2014	The Dark Horse	Genesis Potini
2015	Last Knights	Lt. Cortez
2016	Risen	Yeshua (Jesus) of Nazareth
2018	Meg	James "Mac"? Mackreides

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1991	Under Cover	Zip	TV Film
1994	Hercules in the Underworld	Nessus	TV Film
1995	Mysterious Island	Peter	Episodes: "Make Yourselves a Home" "First Impressions Are Skin Deep"
1996	City Life	Daniel Freeman	4 episodes
1998	The Chosen	Father Tahere	TV Film
2002	Point of Origin	Mike Camello	TV Film
2004	Traffic	Adam Kadyrov	TV Mini-Series
2009-2010	Trauma	Reuben 'Rabbit' Palchuk	20 episodes
2011	Body of Proof	FBI Agent Derek Ames	Episodes: "Missing" and "Hard Knocks"
2012	Missing	Agent Dax Miller	10 episodes
2014	Gang Related	Javier Acosta	13 episodes
2015-present	Fear the Walking Dead	Travis Manawa	Season 1-present (Main cast; 18 episodes)