Waihoroi Shortland

A veteran figure in Māori broadcasting, Waihoroi Shortland has also been an actor (Rain of the Children, Boy), scriptwriter (Crooked Earth) and Māori advisor (The Piano). In 2003 he won the NZ Film Award for Best Actor, after playing Shylock in The Māori Merchant of Venice, the first feature entirely in te reo. in 2015 he became the first chair of Te Mātāwai, the organisation charged with revitalising te reo on behalf of Māori. 

Waihoroi steals the film as a Shylock who is indignant and mischevious, sly and self-righteous. The Listener's Philip Matthews, reviewing The Māori Merchant of Venice, 9 February 2002