Vinnie Bennett is the cover star for the new Viva quarterly magazine. Photo / Mara Sommer
Vinnie Bennett is the cover star for the new Viva quarterly magazine. Photo / Mara Sommer
Across his career, actor Vinnie Bennett has played real life Māori icons, hearse drivers, and even a young Dominic Toretto in Fast and Furious 9, but he entered new territory posing for the cover of the new Viva quarterly magazine.
Bennett appeared alongside model and partner Taylah Kereama for the Spring edition of the popular magazine, which is themed around Love.
Speaking to Viva editor Amanda Linnell and fashion and creative director Dan Ahwa for Viva Talks, Bennett said it was "quite challenging" doing the photoshoot.
"My whole career I've been in front of cameras, but those cameras, they capture movement. But with photo shoots like this, it's just still images and it's hard to kind of get into that zone, but it was something that I'm always interested in and trying new things."
Bennett went international, playing a younger version of Vin Diesel in the latest Fast and Furious movie, but after being forced home by Covid, he earned rave reviews for his quieter role as William Cooper, the husband of Whina Cooper, in biopic Whina earlier this year.
The main difference between a US and New Zealand shoot for Bennett was mainly the size of the snack tables and the interaction with people on set, but said "it's really good for the actor's soul" coming home and soaking in the collaborative nature of the shooting process here.
When it comes to picking roles, Bennett told Viva magazine that he had learned to better identify the roles he wanted to do and which ones he wanted to say no too.
Elaborating for Viva Talks, he elaborated that it is difficult to say no to jobs, but it's about setting out what he wants from his career.
"I feel like a spoiled brat sometimes when there's an opportunity presented,and I'm sitting there being like, 'well, maybe I won't do this one or I won't put a tape down'. Because for majority of my career, I was at the point where I would just be so grateful for anything," Bennet explained.
"Now I think that I've done a fair amount of work and been able to kind of really zone in on what I enjoy the most and the things that resonate most with me. It's finding that balance between allowing yourself to be picky, but also not just holding out for something that might not even exist yet."
Vinnie Bennett and Taylah Kereama star on the new cover of Viva's quarterly magazine. Photo / Mara Sommer.
He said that doing Fast and Furious helped establish himself as an actor, but said: "Now that I've kind of established myself or introduced myself to the world as that kind of person, then that might run the risk of kind of staying within those kind of characters.
"That's all part of it anyway, you know, can't help how you come off and how people might see you."
On Whina, Bennett said he was pleased to have helped create a more human side of the story that gave insight into who Whina and William were as people.
The costume for Cooper helped him settle into the character.
"It was all early 1900ss kind of fashion. It was all very heavy, woollen suits and, and coats. And once you put that on it's like it's, you can kind of just feel it, the weight of it all, like literal weight."
He views clothes as powerful things, describing the leather jacket he wore on the Viva cover as feeling like "a suit of armour".
"Clothes are extremely powerful things. I think they can change your mood completely, can change your energy."
Listen to the podcast above, or read more about these topics in this week's copy of Viva. Find more Viva content at viva.co.nz
• Viva Talks is a weekly fashion, beauty and culture podcast from the team behind Viva, New Zealand's top fashion magazine. New episodes are available to listen to every Wednesday from 5am.
