He is also a producer on Boy, Taika Waititi's new film, as he was with the director's previous feature Eagle Vs Shark. Boy will premiere at the Sundance fim festival on Friday and is due to open here at Easter.
Other than a few guest roles over the years, Trauma is Curtis' first television series. The show premiered in the States on September 28 to mixed reviews. Before Christmas, Curtis was not sure whether it would extend beyond 13 episodes.
He returned to Rotorua and was married at Lake Rotoiti on New Year's Eve, but then found he had to return to San Francisco to resume filming on January 4 as another few episodes had been ordered.
When he spoke to TimeOut this week he was filming episode 15, and thought it was likely the show would enjoy a second season.
"It's a precarious existence in that sense that you don't know how many shows they are going to make, or how many seasons they are going to make. You kind of live your life waiting to hear the news."
That's the biggest thing he has noticed in his switch from film to television - his work schedule is now based on the ratings and programming of the show.
"With a film schedule you get a script, you know you are going to be shooting in these locations, it might go over by a bit but once the money runs out or the shooting is completed you are done. And then you wait another two years before they release it. But with this you never know how many episodes they are going to order or whether they will fulfil that order."
Curtis realises that Trauma, which has a big budget, uses special effects and is filmed all around San Francisco, is not the average introduction to television. He likens it to shooting a film a week.
"There is more action in an hour's pilot than there is in anything else on TV at the moment. It's a medical show but it's shot like an action movie," he says.
He thinks the show will solve domestic arguments over the remote, explaining that most medical dramas attract a female audience, while action attracts the men, but this show bridges both genres.
It follows a team of paramedics who are trying to put post-traumatic stress disorder aside to save lives.
The pilot episode explains they are all suffering the effects of a terrible helicopter crash that killed three of the crew.
The accident put Curtis' character Reuben Palchuck, who is called by his nickname "Rabbit", in a coma for a year. He has been through therapy and is returning to the team.
"You are wondering whether this guy is stable or not, whether he should be doing what he is doing," Curtis says.
When the paramedics arrive at a scene they have a precious period of between 12 to 15 minutes to get their patient to hospital.
"A lot of the time paramedics have to go and get a cat out of a tree or something like that, but our series is focusing on very urgent situations where someone's life is in danger and you have to make a split second decision about whether to do a procedure or not, about what medication to give them or not give them, whether to get them off the scene or not," he says.
It's high action, high drama, and Curtis says it is a lot of fun to make.
"I never watched ER and I would have never tuned into Grey's Anatomy - as a bloke it's not necessarily something I want to watch. But with our show, and my character in particular, it is skewed towards a male audience."
Lowdown
Who: Cliff Curtis
What: Rotorua actor turned Hollywood fixture
Key Roles: Once Were Warriors, Sunshine, Fracture, River Queen, 10,000 BC, Live Free or Die Hard, Collateral Damage, Three Kings, Whale Rider, Bringing Out the Dead.
Latest: Playing Reuben "Rabbit" Palchuck in paramedic drama Trauma, which premieres on TV3 tomorrow at 9.30pm.
