Why Kai Holman From NCIS: Hawaii Looks So Familiar
By Rachel Davis
Alex Tarrant is a fairly young actor whose first IMDb credits date back to just 2014, but it's highly likely that you'll hear a lot about him in the very near future. After all, he's not only a star of "NCIS: Hawaii" — he's also one of the stars of Amazon Prime Studios' upcoming "The Lord of the Rings" series. With that in mind, it's well worth checking out some of his earlier work, because let's face it — you'll probably end up doing it sooner rather than later anyway.
Tarrant's first significant TV role was Maui Vaipiti in the BBC's supernatural murder drama "Tatau," which takes place in the exotic location of Cook Islands, and had the relative newcomer working with heavyweights like Temuera Morrison (who plays Jango Fett and Boba Fett in the "Star Wars" franchise). In an interview with Stuff, Tarrant admitted that the experience was somewhat harrowing, as director Wayne Yip's tendency to ignore him completely threw him off until he realized that Yip likely expected the young actor to behave like his character, whose main motivation is to impress his father — or, as the case may be, his director.
"He was telling me a story about how whenever we want a certain thing out of our actors, from a director's perspective, we tend to sometimes treat them as though they are the character," Tarrant said, though he admitted that the process didn't quite work as intended. "For me as an actor, if that was the tactic I think it was an interesting tactic but I don't think it worked that well for me. I'm very much someone who, if someone gives a certain amount, I give a certain amount back."
