New Zealand actress Rena Owen, one of the most recognizable Maori in the industry, spoke with The Conversation about telling Indigenous stories on the big screen.
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Rena Owen in Whina
The veteran New Zealand actor plays the 80-year-old Maori matriarch Whina Cooper, who in 1975 led a land march of over 600 miles for indigenous rights.
For Rena Owen, it was the role of a lifetime.
Since rocketing to international prominence in 1994 in Lee Tamahori s
Once Were Warriors, in which she played an abused wife in a family descended from Maori warriors, the New Zealand actor has had a steady career of film and TV roles, including parts in Steven Spielberg s
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001) and George Lucas S
tar Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2002), alongside Vin Diesel and Elijah Wood in