Robbie Magasiva

Samoan actor Robbie Magasiva has acted, danced, and been a member of comedy theatre troupe the Naked Samoans. After appearing in 90s sketch shows Skitz and The Semisis, Magasiva joined the ensemble cast of 2001 pool movie Stickmen, and hit comedy Sione's Wedding. Since then he has been a regular face on Kiwi television screens.

Magasiva was born in the Samoan village of Tanumapua. In 1980 the family of eight relocated to Wellington. After leaving school, Robbie tried theatresports, and acted in some commercials, while working as a receptionist at an advertising agency.  

He made an early TV appearance in a 1991 episode of police drama Shark in the Park, before getting his big break on comedy sketch show Skitz. Magasiva would spend three seasons on the programme, working alongside Hori Ahipene and future Naked Samoan David Fane. He would work with all of them again on two further entries from the Gibson Group comedy stable: Telly Laughs, and short-lived Skitz spin-off The Semisis, an over the top tale of a dysfunctional Samoan family in which he played the cheerful, naive Lagi.

There was drama too. By the late 90s Magasiva had taken on recurring roles in acclaimed Gibson Group series Cover Story - playing one of the crew working on a current affairs show - and in small town drama Jackson's Wharf (as a christian policeman). He also appeared in Tom Scott's short-lived police drama Tiger Country.

2001 would prove to be even busier. Thanks partly to the enthusiasm of writer Nick Ward, Magasiva made his big-screen debut that year in hit movie Stickmen, the tale of three blokes, two women and a high stakes Wellington pool tournament. Director Hamish Rothwell went through an "exhaustive" casting process to find a charismatic cast to play the pool players, who could bond both on screen and in real life. Magasiva got the role of Jake, the smooth-talking salesman who preaches adultery.

The same year Stickmen was released, Magasiva was busy on stage - dancing with Black Grace Dance Company, and joining Polynesian theatre troupe the Naked Samoans, who mine comedy from their experiences of growing up brown in Auckland. Magasiva arrived in time to join the samoans in Edinburgh, to perform in Naked Samoans the Trilogy (2002), and act in follow up play Naked Samoans Go Home (2004) - this time playing Sione, who moves from Samoa to Auckland to pursue a rugby career.

Magasiva would work with many of the Naked Samoan crew again in 2006 feature film Sione's Wedding. Co-written by Oscar Kightley, the film follows four longtime Samoan friends on a mission to find maturity, plus someone who they can pass off as their girlfriend. Magasiva played a casanova bike courier in search of a woman who will respect him for more than his body. Sione's Wedding saw him acting alongside his real-life parents and younger brother, Shortland Street actor Pua Magasiva, who plays Sione (another brother, Miki, directs commercials). Sione's Wedding ranks as one of the most successful local comedies released in New Zealand to date. Magasiva reprises his role in Sione sequel Unfinished Business, which was released locally in January 2012.

Between Stickmen and Sione, Magasiva snatched another memorable role - on television series The Strip, he plays on and off romantic interest to the central character, Melissa (Luanne Gordon). Initially a stripper at Melissa's strip club, Magasiva's character later goes on to run an opposition establishment.

Magasiva portrayed one of the team in 2003 tele-movie Skin and Bone, Greg McGee's update of his classic rugby play Foreskin's Lament. Since then his television work has included a 2005 episode of Mataku (The Wild Ones), playing a Pacific Island prince on madcap series Diplomatic Immunity, and a soldier in McGee's Doves of War, a mini-series that jumps between war-torn Bosnia and the present-day.

In 2008 Magasia joined the cast of Shortland Street, as arrogant doctor Maxwell Avia, a role that had originally been written for a pākehā. He also had a small part as a traditional tattooist in Samoan-themed horror film The Tattooist, and took on a new challenge by joining Beatrice Faumuina as co-host on long-running Pacific Island magazine show Tagata Pasifika. In 2011 he took three months off Shortland Street to work on the sequel to Sione's Wedding, due for release in early 2011.

On stage Magasiva has acted in a number of plays written by Samoan/Scottish scribe Victor Rodger. He won a Best Male Newcomer Theatre Award for his role in Rodger's 1998 work Sons, and went on to play the title role in 2006's My Name is Gary Cooper, a time-hopping South Seas' tale of moviemaking, and sexual revenge.

Sources include
'Samoa's answer to the Marx Brothers' - Capital Times, 21 July 2004, Page 8