Tamahori was born in Wellington, New Zealand. He is of Māori ancestry on his father's side and British on his mother's.
Tamahori grew up in Tawa near Wellington. Educated at Tawa School and Tawa College,[1] he began his career as a commercial artist and photographer. He moved into the film industry in the late 1970s, initially getting in the door by working for nothing, then working as a boom operator for Television New Zealand, and on the feature films Skin Deep, Goodbye Pork Pie, Bad Blood, and Race for the Yankee Zephyr.
In the early 1980s Pork Pie director Geoff Murphy promoted Tamahori to become an assistant director on Utu, and he subsequently worked as first assistant director on The Silent One, Murphy's The Quiet Earth, Came a Hot Fridayand Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence. In 1986 Tamahori co-founded production company Flying Fish, which specialised in making commercials. Tamahori made his name with a series of high-profile television commercials, including one awarded 'Commercial of the Decade'.[2]
Feature films
Tamahori had directed a number of shorter dramas for television before he made his feature film debut in 1994 with Once Were Warriors, a gritty depiction of a violent Māori family. The film had problems finding funding, but it went on to break box office records in New Zealand. Overseas it sold to many countries and won rave reviews from Time magazine, Village Voice, and The Melbourne Age, with Time, The Age and Première naming it one of the ten best films of the year.
In 2012 Tamahori was attached to the action epic Emperor, about a young woman seeking revenge for the execution of her father by Holy Roman EmperorCharles V.[5]Adrien Brody was cast in 2014 as the Emperor[6] opposite Sophie Cookson as the young woman, also cast in 2014.[7] The film was finished and screened at Cannes in 2017[8] but its release has been held up[update] by legal challenges.[9]
In 2015 Tamahori directed Mahana, his first feature made in New Zealand since Once Were Warriors. The rural-set drama was based on the novel Bulibasha by Witi Ihimaera, and starred Temuera Morrison, whom he had earlier directed in Once Were Warriors. The movie was released in New Zealand in March 2016, after debuting at the Berlin Film Festival.[10]
Personal life
Tamahori has been married twice and has two sons, one from each marriage.[2]
In January 2006, Tamahori was arrested on Santa Monica Boulevard when, according to Los Angeles police, he entered an undercover policeman's car while wearing a woman's dress and offered to perform a sex act in exchange for money.[11] In February 2006, he pleaded no contest in a Los Angeles court to a charge of criminal trespass in return for prosecutors dropping charges of prostitution and loitering. He was placed on 36 months' probation and ordered to perform 15 days of community service.[12][13]