Rocky: Te Aho Eketone-Whitu
Shy guy Te Aho Eketone-Whitu remembers the first day of filming like e it was yesterday. Driving to set, Te Aho, o, then eight, had changed his mind. He didn’t want to be in a movie any more.e. “I was a bit scared,” he admits. “I told my mum I wasn’t going to get out of the car. I wanted to go home.”
Te Aho landed the role of Rocky, Boy’s oy’s younger brother, after his aunt said he e should audition. “How Rocky was, well, ell, that was me,” he explains. “I was very y shy during the whole of filming. I was the youngest on set and that’s really daunting. nting. But Taika spent so much time with me. e. He was always trying to make me laugh ugh and relax.”
Working on a movie set was a world ld away from the life Te Aho knew growing ing up, with his family living in the rural bush just outside of Rotorua. “When I was a kid, we didn’t really watch TV. We were always lways outside,” he recalls. “So it was a bit weird suddenly acting in front of cameras and nd lots of people.”
After the film was released, Te Aho and his whanau got together for a big screening eening party. “I could tell they were all so proud,” oud,” he says. “But even now, I’ve only watched ched Boy maybe twice.”
However, after welcoming baby son n Sid in November with his girlfriend Shayla ayla Matekuare, he admits he might have to watch it one more time. “I’ll have to show how him when he’s a bit older,” he smiles.
Since completing a scholarship to play rugby at St Bede’s College last year, Te Aho now works in a nursery. “I definitely ely feel more comfortable in the outdoorss and surrounded by nature than I ever did on a movie set,” he laughs.