Antonio Te Maioha

Anatonio Te Maioha is a television and film actor from New Zealand. He first came to international prominence when he played a gladiator named Barca the Beast of Carthage the television drama Spartacus: Blood and Sand and its prequel Spartacus: Gods of the Arena.

Background

Te Maioha was born in Auckland on 1 February 1970, and was raised in Hastings in the Hawke's Bay Region of the North Island of New Zealand. His father was of Maori descent through both the Ngapuhi tribe, the largest in New Zealand, and the Waikato tribe, also known as the "Tainui" or "Waikato-Tainui."

Career

Anatonio Te Maioha started his career as a street performer before gaining a place at the Toi Whakaari Drama School in 1992. He went on to work with a Maori theatre project run by actor Jim Moriarty and was in the cast of Waiora, touring New Zealand, Hawaii and Britain.

One of Anatonio Te Maioha's first significant television roles was in 1998 playing Boraxis in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys followed by several roles in Xena: Warrior Princess and Legend of the Seeker, a weekly television series based on The Sword of Truth novels by Terry Goodkind." He has also appeared in other New Zealand-based television productions, including Shortland Street and The Lost World. Te Maioha has also had roles in several films, including Te Tangata Whai Rawa O Weneti and a short film called Taua (War Party)" and the 2000 film Feathers of Peace (Ngati Tama Warrior) directed by Barry Barclay.

Te Maioha has come to international attention through his supporting role as the gladiator Barca in the television drama Spartacus: Blood and Sand and its prequel Spartacus: Gods of the Arena. Nicknamed the "Beast of Carthage", Barca is the bodyguard and hitman of a gladiator owner named Batiatus. Several episodes into the show, he is shown to be in a homosexual relationship with a slave boy named Pietros. He is eventually murdered when Pietros is tricked into revealing damning evidence about Barca.

In 2016 he was cast as minor role Maori Warrior in Zoolander 2.

Private life

Anatonio Te Maioha is married and lives in the town of Raglan on the west coast of New Zealand's North Island. Active in local environmentalism, he has hosted a Sustainable Futures Forum in Waikato that brought around 80 people to discuss a variety of environmental issues. He has also publicly discussed his personal involvement and Raglan's leadership in recycling, citing the accomplishments of a local organization called Xtreme Waste. Te Maioha is uncomfortable with being labeled as a "greenie," saying that he is just doing "stuff everybody could" and that being given such a label means that other people will "write you off...instead of actually listening to what’s being said or applying changes in their own lives."