Bio
Cliff Curtis is a New Zealand actor best known for his roles in the feature films The Piano, Whale Rider and Blow; and for his starring role as daredevil flight medic Reuben Rabbit Palchuck on the ensemble drama series Trauma, from 2009-2010.
Curtis is one of New Zealand's most successful acting talents, having worked with such acclaimed directors as Martin Scorsese, Michael Mann, David O. Russell, Danny Boyle, Frank Darabont, Jane Campion, Antoine Fuqua, Darren Aronofsky, Wayne Kramer, Roland Emmerich and Niki Caro.
Curtis has played a diverse range of characters including his role opposite Academy Award nominee Keisha Castle Hughes in Whale Rider.
He has also appeared in the Academy Award-winning films Training Day with Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke, The Insider with Al Pacino and Russell Crowe, and his very first film, The Piano, with Holly Hunter, Anna Paquin and Harvey Keitel.
Among Curtis' other films are 10,000 B.C., Push with Chris Evans and Dakota Fanning, Sunshine, Die Hard 4: Live Free or Die Hard opposite Bruce Willis, Fracture with Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling, Blow with Johnny Depp, and Three Kings with George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg and Ice Cube.
He also stars in M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender with Dev Patel and A Thousand Words with Eddie Murphy; and produced Taika Waititi's film Boy, which became the highest grossing New Zealand film.
Curtis worked with director Stephen Hopkins on USA Network's Emmy-nominated miniseries Traffic.
Among his numerous accolades in his native New Zealand, Curtis received a New Zealand Film Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work in Desperate Remedies, the same year that he received a nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his work in the film Once Were Warriors, directed by Lee Tamahori.
He also starred in Jubilee which earned him a New Zealand Best Actor Award and Overnight, for which he received a New Zealand Television Award nod for Best Actor.
Curtis has also worked extensively in New Zealand theatre. He trained at the New Zealand Drama School before attending the prestigious Teatro Dimitri Scoula in Switzerland.
His stage credits include Macbeth, The Cherry Orchard, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Happy End, Fiddler on the Roof, Man of La Mancha and Porgy and Bess.