Oscar Kightley

Oscar Kightley, MNZM, has brought his double-barrelled writing and performing talents to theatre, television and the big screen. Born in the Samoan capital, Apia, Kightley emigrated to New Zealand at the age of four. He grew up with an Aunt and Uncle, one of eight children in the West Auckland suburb of Te Atatu. 

Following a journalism cadetship at The Auckland Star, Kightley spent four years writing for the paper and the Sunday Star-Times. After working briefly in radio, he headed to Christchurch for his first brush with television: co-presenting teen magazine show Life in The Fridge. He also began writing for the theatre as part of touring company Pacific Underground, partly from a desire to get more Pacific Island characters on stage. As Kightley told the Listener, "we tried to make serious stuff but it came out funny."

Through the rest of the 90s, Kightley's career continued to combine television and theatre. On TV he was displaying his writing and performing talents as part of the ensembles of Gibson Group sketch series Skitz, Telly Laughs and Newsflash. Kightley was invited to write for Skitz after Dave Gibson saw one of his plays; Kightley soon began writing himself into sketches.

Inbetween TV jobs, "the master of self-deprecating immigrant humour" (Diana Wichtel) was honing his storytelling skills on a series of plays that explored Pacific Island characters, usually adjusting to life in New Zealand. Fresh off the Boat (co-written with Simon Small) was performed in Australia and Samoa. Later director Nathaniel Lees locked Kightley and his Skitz colleague Dave Fane in a hotel room to help them complete fa'afafine tale A Frigate Bird Sings, for the NZ International Arts Festival. Kightley followed it with his first solo play, family tale Dawn Raids, which he also directed (not to be confused with the documentary of the same name, which Kightley also appears in). In 1998 he won the Bruce Mason Playwriting Award.  

In the late 90s Kightley founded The Naked Samoans, with original members David Fane and Mario Gaoa. This group of New Zealand-raised Pacific Islanders mined comedy from their experiences of growing up brown and misunderstood, in the world's largest Polynesian city.

After watching their shows, Kightley's ex Auckland Star colleague Elizabeth Mitchell suggested the Naked Samoans' humour might make good material for an animated television series.

In 1999 Kightley was invited to work as a storyliner on Shortland Street, an experience that proved helpful when the animated series  bro'Town came into being, five years later. "The impact it had on my career was huge. It gave me the discipline of writing stories and helped so much in the mechanics of writing 30-minute episodes. There are no schools that teach you those skills."

bro'Town's portrait of life for a group of un-PC Pacific Island and Māori kids proved a major hit, spawning five series. The show saw him sharing the script table - and the recording booth - with fellow Naked Samoans Mario Gaoa, Dave Fane, and Shimpal Lelisi. Kightley played Vale Pepelo, brother to Lelisi's character, and most studious member of the group.

Mid-way through their bro'Town adventure, The Naked Samoans ventured onto the big screen with 2006 hit Sione's Wedding. Centred around four 30-something males with an urgent deadline to find a girlfriend, Sione proved another PI Kiwi breakthrough for the troupe. The film quickly became the most commercially-successful Kiwi comedy released on home soil (at least until the meteoric 2010 rise of Taika Waititi's Boy).

On top of co-writing Sione with James Griffin, Kightley played the bumbling but sensible Albert. According to Kightley, the character's naivete means that he needs most things explained to him, "in triplicate, with memos. He needs everything stated including which girl likes him, and which girl he likes." Kightley argued that while creating Albert, he and Griffin had no idea who would be cast in the role. "If I knew I would be playing him I would have made Albert much cooler. I would definitely have given him better clothes." 

Sequel Sione's 2 - Unfinished Business was released in January 2012. Writers Kightley and Griffin considered an idea that involved the same ensemble of actors, but different characters, before settling on a story set five years after the events of the first film.   Simon Bennett (Outrageous Fortune) directs.

Kightley has fronted up for TV3 rugby coverage, star-studded comedy show Radiradirah, and as a breakfast presenter on radio station Nui FM. He has also been frequent partner in crime to ex-Ice TV presenter Nathan Rarere - the two co-presented globetrotting DNA-tracing documentary Made in Taiwan, sports show Sportzah, and 2005 quiz show Snatch Our Booty.

After co-directing a video ('Just Roll') for hip-hop musician PNC, Kightley went on to direct 'Walk Right Up', for rising talent Ladi6.

A 2006 Arts Foundation Laureate Award winner, and Qantas award-winning journalist, Kightley was made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2009, for services to theatre and television. 

Sources include
Sione's Wedding Press Kit
'Oscar Kightley talks bro'Town and being brown' (Video Interview), NZ On Screen Website. Director Clare O'Leary (Uploaded 27 March 2009). Accessed 12 August 2011
David O'Donnell, 'Everything is family: David O'Donnell interviews Nathaniel Lees', in Performing Aotearoa: New Zealand Drama and Theatre in an Age of Transition, edited by Marc Maufort and David O'Donnell (Brussels: PIE Peter Lang, 2007), Pages 331-347
Diana Wichtel, 'Funny, that' (Interview) - NZ Listener, 9 December 2006, Issue 3474
'Oscar Kightley' (Profile). The Arts Foundation website. Accessed 18 March 2010
'Oscar Kightley' (Profile). Playmarket website. Accessed 18 March 2010