By Saturday Morning on RNZ
When it came to wielding weapons in the new Spartacus series, Māori performers had an advantage, actor and musician Jordi Webber says.
“We are gifted in the sense that our tūpuna were warriors, you know? We’re so grounded and our fluidity when we move is just innate.
“Even though it’s not a taiaha or a patu [we’re using], there’s just something that sinks in, and you feel like you know how to use it, and if you don’t, you quickly adapt. Swords, spears, all of that just came really naturally,” he told RNZ’s Saturday Morning.
After filming the mega-church drama Prosper, Webber was living in his van and travelling around Australia when he found out he’d been cast in the American series Spartacus: House of Ashur.
“[Pompeii] is incredible, and some of it’s still so untouched and intact ... you’re standing in the sand, you look all around you, and you can feel the mana in there, you can feel the spirits, the history, the blood and everything. I was like, ‘Whoa ... ’”
Ten years after the original Spartacus was shot in Auckland, Spartacus: House of Ashur was filmed in South Auckland.
In Aotearoa, shoots are usually small and chill, Webber said, and this was the first time shooting he had really felt like he was “in the movies” filming something at home.
Physically, the role of Tarchon was definitely the most challenging he has taken on so far.
A month of training before filming involved daily sword practice and CrossFit, he said. During the eight-month shoot, he did 500 push-ups per day between takes.
The script for Spartacus: House of Ashuris was written in old-style language and is “very sweary”, Webber said, especially for a guy who grew up in the Mormon Church.
“Every time one of those words came out of my mouth, I was just thinking, ‘Oh, there’s another bar of soap waiting for me at home’.
“There’s that little part of me that [thinks] ‘speak kindly to others and use your language and speak good words’.”
“That part of Jordi inside me was going, ‘Oh, don’t say that. Why are you saying that?’ But I just had to go, hey, it’s just the character. That’s all good.”
Before getting his role in Spartacus: House of Ashur, Webber had seen only “snippets” of the original Spartacus series, because it came out when he was in high school – “I couldn’t really just cruise on home and watch that with my parents.”
Now he’s a fan.
“It’s quite in your face, but once you get past all the words and the exposed tinana [bodies], the actual stories are really strong and the characters and the sneakiness. It’s rich storytelling.”
Webber, who is also a musician, said he always carries with him the awhi (love) and warmth he’s been gifted by his whānau, and loves to extend that to the people he meets.
His new song “Live or Die” is both a love letter to the world and a celebration of travelling, which is an important part of his life.
“I’ve just learned so much on my journeys out in the world that I was just like, I want to write something that I can always listen to and remember the places that I’ve been, but that can also just encourage other people.”
Back in 2012, which Webber calls his Yes Man year, after seeing the Jim Carrey film in which Carrey takes up a challenge to say yes to everything in life for an entire year, he said yes to enrolling at Unitec.
But after hearing a radio ad on The Edge about auditions for a boy band, he said yes to that, too.
“I was like, oh, that’s not really what I want to do, but it’s a Yes Man opportunity. I’ve got to say yes. I’ve got to say yes.”
A couple of months later, Webber was touring the country with the boy band Titanium, whose debut single Come on Home went to number one on the New Zealand singles chart.
While grateful for the opportunity, he said that in his heart he knew he wanted to be an actor. When the band decided to move to the US, he knew that it wasn’t the right move for him.
“My puku was just saying, ‘nah, man, this is your time to really follow your acting. This is the moment. There’s also, in life, a lot of power in saying no.”
The first two episodes of Spartacus: House of Ashur drop on ThreeNow on Saturday December 6, with a new episode dropping every week after that.