Actor Beulah Koale shares “Tinā” behind the scenes

Actor Beulah Koale has been part of the television shows “Hawaiʻi Five-0,” “NCIS: Hawaiʻi,” and “Magnum P.I.” He plays Sio, a pivotal character in the movie, “Tinā,” which is headed to theaters on Oʻahu and Maui this week.

“Tinā” had its world premiere at the Hawaiʻi International Film Festival last year. Now, it is returning to the Islands to debut for larger audiences. It opens in theaters in Guam, American Samoa and Hawaiʻi on Thursday, Aug. 28. It has already been showing in New Zealand and Australia.

“It's crazy because we opened the film last year in October, in Hawaiʻi,” Koale told Aloha State Daily. “And it was cool coming back home, opening it and seeing all my ʻohana again, and seeing my family.”

Written and directed by Miki Magasiva, “Tinā,” tells the story of Mareta Percival, who begrudgingly becomes a substitute teacher at a private school where she starts a choir, after her world is upended by the Christchurch earthquake in New Zealand.

As he reflected on the film, Koale had a message for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

“I would love The Rock to come to watch,” he told ASD. “But I would love for his mom to watch it, because his mom is probably going to be exactly like the mom that we show in this film.”

Recently, The Rock, who is a professional wrestler turned actor, was the voice of Maui in “Moana 2.” He was also Callum Drift in the Christmas movie “Red One.” He and Director Martin Scorsese also pitched a possible movie about a crime boss in Hawaiʻi that would star Johnson, Leonardo DiCaprio and Emily Blunt.

“He is a man of influence and power out there in Hollywood, but he is also a Samoan man,” Koale said. “And me being a Samoan man, I know we have written a story that is a reflection of us, and we're out there telling Polynesian stories too, so another brother can help us out a little bit, so I'm calling him out. And I say this with love and respect, because he does a lot of great things for our people.”

To get into character, Koale kept in mind the story being shared by the movie’s screenwriter and director, he said.

“Miki wrote this with someone in particular in mind that he wrote it for,” he said. “I knew the person he was writing it for. It was not easy, but it was almost an honor to represent that and represent the story that he was trying to tell.”

One of the hardest scenes to shoot was set in a hospital, but that didn’t stop the actors from sharing a laugh.

“Every time you called cut — in between the takes — we were just laughing,” Koale said. “When it was time to go to work, we went to work. But in between, yeah, there's a lot of laughs and a lot of joy and just fun being on set.”

The movie is dedicated to the screenwriter and director’s brother, Pua Magasiva, an actor in “Power Rangers,” who died in 2019, at 38 years old. It explores topics such as cultural acceptance, parenthood and grief.

“When you make art, you just try and make it as truthfully as you can,” Koale said. “That’s what Miki set out to do. He set out to make a story that reflected him, his upbringing, what we grew up with, Samoan culture, representing our mothers and our old people. A lot of Samoans grew up in church and hearing those hymns — not just Samoan hymns, but there's some Zulu hymns in there, some New Zealand classics. Pretty much the film is you're watching Miki’s life. He put his life on the page, and we helped tell his story.”

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Katie Helland can be reached at katie@alohastatedaily.com.