Source: Radio New Zealand
When Beulah Koale flew out to Atlanta to begin filming for his break out role in the movie Thank You for Your Service in 2016 his career was on the up, but he had no money in his bank account.
The Ōtara-born actor flew there first class for the first time in his life and checked into his hotel, but couldn’t afford any food, he told RNZ’s Culture 101.
“I went down to the gym and when you walked in on the office table, there’s a little bowl of green apples. So, I was like, oh, I’ll just eat these. So, for three days, I went down to the gym three times a day and just ate green apples.”
Beulah Koale in A View From the Bridge.
Silo Theatre
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“My thing is I’m terrible at asking for help. That’s still my biggest flaw now, asking for help. I walked to the reception lady and I’m pretty much crying to this lady going, ‘Hey, I sound crazy, but I’m doing this movie Thank You for Your Service . I don’t know when I get paid or how I’ll get paid, but I got no money. Can I buy some food and I’ll pay you back. Promise. I don’t know when.’
“And she just looked at me and just said, ‘Sweetheart, Dreamworks is paying for everything’.”
Koale promptly went back to his room and ordered “everything on the menu”, he says.
“I’m a kid from Ōtara, you know? You kind of just figure it out as you go along. I know I’m really good at this acting thing. And I was just like, I’m not going to have any excuse to fold and let this dream fail. So, I just ate green apples.”
That role brought him to the attention of the show runner for a re-make of the Hawaii Five-0.
“I was in Malaysia at the time shooting a little film and I was eating ice cream. I was with my agent, and she was like, ‘Hey, these people want to call you for a regular series’. Someone’s reaching out for Hawaii Five-0′ . And I was like, ‘Oh yeah. I don’t know what that is’. – Idiot. I almost missed the call.”
That moment in Malaysia changed his life, he says.
“And from there I flew home and then pretty much packed my bags again and flew to Hawaii and stayed there for about four years.”
Beulah Koale and Perlina Lau for Culture 101.
So’omālō Iteni Schwalger
Now Koale is back in his hometown with Silo Theatre in Arthur Miller’s A View From the Bridge at Q Theatre playing Brooklyn long-shoreman Eddie Carbone. The play is directed by Anapela Polatai’ivao.
His New Zealand-Samoan background is a long way from 1950s Brooklyn, he says.
“This play scares me a lot in terms of I’ve never felt a play reach this deep into my gut and had to pull something out.”
Polatai’ivao insisted the whole cast learn Brooklyn accents, he says.
“I remember reading the script the first time and I go, ‘Mum [Polatai’ivao ], I don’t think we can Samoan this script’. And she goes, ‘No, I don’t want you to’.
“I was like, ‘Huh?’ And she’s like, ‘I’m going to cast a whole brown cast. And we’re going to honour how it’s supposed to be done. We’re all going to learn the accent’.”
The themes in Miller’s play are universal, he says.
“A play like this, it doesn’t require a specificity of culture because it’s a human tragedy. It’s a tragedy inside a family household, and every culture can play that.”
A View From the Bridge plays at the Q Theatre until 3 May.
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
