Peata’s involvement in the film industry began at age 19, when she took on the role of Wardrobe Supervisor for indie feature film Northspur. Realising an absolute passion for film, she worked on 10 different TOTS short films the following year, branching out into first assistant camera, music video dancer, hmua, and stunt work. Her first major acting role came the following year, when she was cast as Tuptim in a stage production of “The King & I”. In 2020 she starred in locally-made short film, War Paint, which won several international festival awards for best drama, earned her a Best Actress nomination in the Top of the South Film Festival and is now streaming on the Maori TV on-demand platform.
A classically-trained pianist and flute player, Peata grew up playing and performing music with her four siblings on an almost daily basis. She also trained in classical ballet for 10 years before switching over to contemporary and then krump, in order to challenge herself with a style as much of a polar opposite to ballet as you can possibly get!
Over the last three years she has been studying Michael Chekhov acting technique under Elena Stejko, te reo Māori at TWoA, and more recently stuntwork at the NZ Stunt School. Recent industry highlights were acting in Lee Tamahori’s ‘The Convert’ with Guy Pearce, doing stunts on TVNZ’s ‘Kairākau’ Season 4, and playing the recurring character of Mage in a web series at Moose Ninja Studios. She is represented by ODD Management. Outside of acting, Peata works as a freelance contractor in videography, editing and camera assisting.
