Robert Rakete: on being an urchin, a substitute and a Wiggle…

Robert Rakete (Ngāpuhi) is a popular radio host, who has acted and hosted music shows on television. His first acting role was on kidult adventure Sea Urchins, followed by teleplay Loose Enz: The Protesters. Rakete has hosted or appeared in a range of shows, from music programmes CV and RTR, to Clash of the Codes and What Now? In 2014 he was invited to join Australian children’s group The Wiggles for some guest appearances. 

In this ScreenTalk interview, Rakete talks about:

• Having three months off school to be in Sea Urchins
• Getting acting lessons on set from actor Ian Mune
• Feeling a fraud during rehearsals for The Protesters
• Learning that people take music too seriously while hosting pop show CV
• Observing experienced TV presenters to learn how to present for RTR
• Becoming the go to guy, when other presenters had time off
• Community politics and his grandmother’s death on Hero Parade
• Playing himself as a cartoon character on bro’Town
• The incredible experience of becoming the Brown Wiggle for The Wiggles

This video was first uploaded on 26 May 2014, and is available under this Creative Commons licence. This licence is limited to use of ScreenTalk interview footage only and does not apply to any video content and photographs from films, television, music videos, web series and commercials used in the interview.

Interview, Camera and Editing – Andrew Whiteside