F E AT U R E
Face value BY F R A N C E S CA E M M S
‘My cat died and I had stroke,’ says Cohen Holloway. It sounds like a bad joke, or an exaggeration at least, but it’s true. Stress had built up and it was the straw that broke the camel’s back, or in this case, broke the actor’s face. The minor stroke left him with paralysis of his face. He couldn’t talk and couldn’t show expression. ‘I thought I’d never work again. I just thought, oh well that’s it,’ says the Toi Whakaari–trained actor. Three months later, with the help of a speech therapist, Cohen started talking again, but he’d accepted he would never be cast in anything that showed his face. ‘Somehow it just made me relax. It was a huge lesson – to not take myself on face value. I couldn’t be a Hollywood star. That was never going to happen. I had to be ok with being imperfect.’ Suddenly he was getting more work than ever. ‘When you realise you can’t be like everyone else, that’s your strength. Being you is the best card you can play.’ Cohen
now has a string of TV and web series, shorts, and feature film credits under his belt. Most recently he starred in the New Zealand feature film Bellbird, a story of loss and love set on a Northland dairy farm. Cohen is completely new to farming, but his character Bruce is too, ‘so I was sort of just being myself.’ He talks of the day he needed to milk a cow. ‘I felt so vulnerable! All the locals had turned up to watch the filming, so they’re all heckling and cracking up. “Use your knee, use your back!” The cows were terrified. They’re like bees and dogs, they can smell fear.’ Bellbird was a chance for Cohen to move away from comedy. ‘I’m the cameo king,’ he says, having been cast in small (but vital) roles in a number of Taika Waititi films. ‘It’s beautiful to be given a lead role, and to be the glue in the film rather than just a comedy release valve.’
46