Love Actually\u2018s Thomas Brodie-Sangster stars, with Harry Potter\u2018s David Thewlis as Fagin. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s easy to understand why Latailakepa was \u201cfreaking out a little bit\u201d when he scored the role of Aputi, a rather comical standover man linked to Fagin\u2019s notorious gang.<\/p>\n
New Zealand actor Albert Latailakepa as Aputi in The Artful Dodger. Photo \/ Disney+<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re all lovely to work with. They eased my nerves a bit when I was on set. But yeah, I was stoked. I was happy as,\u201d the 27-year-old says.<\/p>\n
Latailakepa is zooming in from his hometown of Wellington, inside the Circa Theatre, a place where he\u2019s getting back to his stage roots in a new collaborative comedy show, D\u2019Things N Such.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s funny because every time [his collaborators] have tried to put the show on, I was supposed to have been in it, but then Dodger takes me away. There\u2019s like a little gag within the show where they talk about how \u2018I\u2019ve changed, and I\u2019ve just gone to be some sort of big celebrity\u2019 kind of thing. But it\u2019s nice to be back in the theatre.\u201d<\/p>\n
Admittedly, Dodger is a pretty good reason for the delay, especially because Latailakepa still gets the opportunity to stretch his comedy muscles and authenticity on screen \u2013 both of which are very apparent even through a Zoom camera.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, it feels like a slapstick, very physical kind of comedy,\u201d he says of the TV role. Though he jokes that perhaps at times his Kiwi accent made him a little \u201ctoo mumbly\u201d.<\/p>\n
Albert Latailakepa (left) stars alongside Thomas Brodie-Sangster and David Thewlis in The Artful Dodger. Photo \/ Disney +<\/p>\n
Besides noticing his accent, Latailakepa says many of the cast were shocked to learn that his time filming season one was also his first time travelling to Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cA dream of mine has always been to travel for work. I\u2019ve always wanted to just stay [living] here in Wellington, and hopefully the work allows me to travel, which it has,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut who knows if I\u2019ll be saying that a bit later on down the line.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perhaps, in a way, being a first-time visitor made his Dodger character development even more realistic; many of the characters in the show, convicts and migrants from the UK, had never been to Australia before either. <\/p>\n
But Latailakepa says getting into the world of Charles Dickens wasn\u2019t necessarily a walk in the park right away. While he recalls English teachers talking about the famed author, he says he still had to \u201clearn quickly and on the fly\u201d to navigate the script and language.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d say it eventually did come naturally\u201d.<\/p>\n
Like many young actors, Latailakepa always hoped he would be in front of the cameras on big Hollywood sets. Seeing fellow performers, like his friend and fellow Pasifika Wellingtonian Chris Alosio, succeed overseas, showed him the value of taking that first step.<\/p>\n
The fellow Toi Whakaari graduate has starred in hit Australian drama series North Shore and The Messenger, and the 2022 horror film Talk To Me.<\/p>\n
\u201cA humble Tongan\/Samoan kid from Timberlea with a huge heart and the smarts to boot, that\u2019s my lil brother man,\u201d is how Alosio describes Latailakepa.<\/p>\n
\u201cI met Alby when we were just kids playing in the church carpark, we also were both very proud students of St Patricks College, Silverstream. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe came up in similar spaces, so there was always that shared grounding. What I admired most was how proudly he carried where he\u2019s from. Even early on, he was never trying to be anything other than himself, and that authenticity has stayed with him no matter how big the stages have become.\u201d<\/p>\n
Albert Latailakepa (right) with friend and mentor Chris Alosio.<\/p>\n
Alosio says the overseas success of Latailakepa and other Pasifika actors shows how far things have shifted, and how far they still can go. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s special is that they\u2019re not leaving their identity behind to do it. They\u2019re taking their culture, values, and stories with them, and that visibility means everything for the next generation coming up. It\u2019s especially meaningful seeing Alby\u2019s rise because we were once just kids in the church carpark with big dreams, and now we\u2019re living those dreams out together and experiencing the highs and lows – having each other to lean on through the wild ride, means the world to me,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I stepped into this industry, there was nobody from where we\u2019re from in Wellington really doing this, and nobody I grew up with to ask for advice. So to be that for Alby and other boys pursuing this craft from our neck of the woods, gives me another reason to keep going too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Albert Latailakepa says he’s grateful he took the leap into acting. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n
Latailakepacontinues to seek out stage and screen projects here and across the ditch. Besides his Dodger role, audiences can also see him in homegrown shows Wellington Paranormal and Warren\u2019s Vortex.<\/p>\n
And what does he attribute to helping him go the distance? He says it was listening to his heart and instincts.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you think that you\u2019ve got a knack for it, then by all means you should go for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
All episodes of The Artful Dodger: Season 2 will stream on Disney+ from February 10.<\/p>\n
Mitchell Hageman joined the Herald\u2019s entertainment and lifestyle team in 2024. He previously worked as a multimedia journalist for Hawke\u2019s Bay Today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Love Actually\u2018s Thomas Brodie-Sangster stars, with Harry Potter\u2018s David Thewlis as Fagin. It\u2019s easy to understand why Latailakepa…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3376,10049,14806,2398,5136,156,7643,71,2959,16572,153493,153492,103051,111,139,69,4062,61,6382,52,1316],"class_list":["post-271257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-actor","tag-albert","tag-classes","tag-disney","tag-drama","tag-entertainment","tag-faith","tag-from","tag-high","tag-joined","tag-latailakepa","tag-latailakepas","tag-leap","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-school","tag-to","tag-took","tag-wellington","tag-when"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}