Eyes opened to heritage:
Cohen Holloway stars in season two of local comedy Find Me A Maori Bride. He tells Sarah Nealon how the show has affected the way people see him.
Cohen Holloway tells how a TV mockumentary is making people see him in a different light.
Before he starred in mockumentary Find Me A Maori Bride, there were many people who were clueless about Cohen Holloway’s heritage. The Wellington actor, whose long list of screen credits includes Until Proven Innocent where he played David Dougherty, is part Maori. He plays single real-estate bachelor Tama on the Maori TV show, alongside Matariki Whatarau’s accountant character George. The two are cousins who have embarked on a quest to find Maori brides to keep their grandmother happy and, subsequently, inherit millions of dollars. “It’s been good for me, this show, because I do look like a white plastic Maori like Tama,” says Holloway. “When I travel around the country now I get lots of Maori coming up to me and saying, ‘Hey, Tama, I love your show’ or this or that. “This wouldn’t have happened a couple of years ago. I did this comedy gig in Wellington before Maori Bride. I did some Maori content and was speaking te reo and doing stuff, and this troll jumped on Twitter and said, ‘Hey, white guy, leave Maori jokes for the Maoris eh’. “You want to troll back. I do this thing in my head where I have this sort of fantasy of how I could react and I could create this other character and then it’s like, ‘Oh no, just let it go’. “But now that I’m on Maori Bride I can tell Maori jokes and people go, ‘That’s the fella from Maori Bride’.” Holloway, who is in his 40s, has two sons aged four and seven and is Ngati Toa on his mother’s side. His uncle, Jim Moriarty, played Riki in the 1970s Kiwi soap Close To Home. Besides acting, Holloway also performs in the musical comedy group The Maori Side Steps. “I’ve been blessed,” he says. “I haven’t had to do much outside the art of acting.”
“It’s been good for me, this show, because I do look like a white plastic Maori.” – Cohen Holloway