Access: On the final day of filming the cast and crew paid tribute by doing a tribal Haka for you?
Manu: Yeah, I was fortunate that they did use my death scene as my final scene on the show and the one thing about that particular scene is I had no [acting] choice for it. It was the one scene during four years of filming the show where I just really didnt know how I was gonna play the scene.
It was a really difficult one, but then, when I asked Cynthia [Addai-Robinson, who played Naevia], what she thought about the scene, she told me she was basing it on the death of her father.
So when she told me that, I was very aware of how emotional she would be in that scene, so I kind of just looked at her in support and
that ended up being the right choice, because Crixus, in his death
he knew what was coming and he knew potentially what would happen to Naevia, [and] following that, she would need all the strength she could get, so I spent the whole time just sort of looking at her and feeling for her, rather than anything about myself.
We do this in acting, but until you totally give yourself up to another actor, you dont really realize the strength of it.
At the end of my scene I went over because she was crying, because she put herself through that emotional scene with her father, and so I went over and sort of put my head against her forehead
[It was] just a very truthful moment, but then suddenly I heard the roar of Antonio Te Maioho, who played Barca, and he had basically gotten together with all of the crew and the stunt guys and even the extras and organized this giant Haka for me, which was a real proud moment for me because thats the Maori war dance and Ive performed it many a time. I performed it for Andy Whitfields funeral and what not.
We used it to send off other people whod been on the show. When somebody died who was of significance, wed send them off with a Haka, or some of the good directors that came along, and I suddenly found it was my turn after four years.
