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I first met Robbie Magasiva 12 years ago when he was moving from the television comedy Skitz to the TV3 - later TVNZ - drama Cover Story.
"Robbie's very shy," the publicist whispered, "but he's definitely one to watch." And watch the 35-year-old father-of-two we have. His television roles have progressed from support characters to leads; film career highlights include Stickmen, Sione's Wedding and The Tattooist. He is an essential part of the theatre comedy team Naked Samoans and he co-presents Pacific affairs magazine show Tagata Pasifika.
But if Magasiva is shy, he is not afraid to shed his clothes for his art. Of his fellow Naked Samoans, he's the one who comes closest to the title.
Now theatre audiences will see more of Magasiva than ever before - figuratively and literally - in what he says is the most challenging stage role of his career.
He plays Gary Cooper in My Name is Gary Cooper by Pacific playwright Victor Rodger who, rumour has it, wrote the role specifically for Magasiva.
Jumping time zones and cultural divides, the comedy drama shoots from 1950s Samoa, where Hollywood screen legend Gary Cooper sets the island alight filming Return to Paradise, to Los Angeles in 1973, where a young Samoan man charms his way into the lives of the family of a Holly-wood movie mogul. Then, in Auckland 2000, a revival screening of Return to Paradise reveals a family cycle of betrayal and revenge.
Magasiva is in nearly every scene. "It is the best work I have done in my whole career because it's challenging and that's what you want as an actor," he said. "It's not just another role where it's, 'Here Robbie, take your shirt off'."
Although he does spend chunks of the play scantily clad. "Yes, but it's an integral part of the script, so I don't mind given the context.
"Part of this character's seduction, if you like, is the way he looks and the way he plays on other people's perceptions of Pacific Islanders running around half-naked in grass skirts.
"He is happy to fulfil their stereotypes but then bang! when you least expect it, he shatters those ideals."
Magasiva met Rodgers in 1998 at Circa Theatre while in a play called Heretic, about controversial anthropologist Margaret Mead.
Rodgers asked him if he would consider a role in one of his plays which would "extend" Magasiva's range. That play was Sons, which won Rodger the 1998 Chapman Tripp Award for Best New Play and Best New Writer.
Magasiva was awarded Best Male Newcomer.
In 2002, they collaborated on Ranterstantrum.
Rodger, of Samoan and Scottish heritage, says his work challenges traditional perceptions of what it means to be a Pacific Islander. Magasiva, in turn, says Rodger writes to his rhythm.
He is clearly having fun with My Name is Gary Cooper, describing the cast of Jennifer Ward-Lealand, Roy Snow, Damien Harrison, Anapela Polataivao, Nora Aati, Goretti Chadwick and Liesha Ward Knox as the perfect mix of stage veterans, mid-career actors and newcomers.
Magasiva may be more confident in interviews these days, but he is still modest.
He admits to being nervous about working with theatre luminary Ward-Lealand and is equally as quick to pass questions to his co-star Liesha Ward Knox. Those in the know are whispering about the 26-year-old being one to watch.
This is Ward Knox's first appearance for the Auckland Theatre Company.
She plays Jennifer White, the supposedly worldly-wise American teenager who falls under Gary Cooper's spell.
Her previous theatre credits include Badjelly the Witch, Plenty, Cymbeline and The Bomb at the Herald Theatre this year.
Ward Knox also has her own theatre company, Phundmi Productions.
