A Maori in Mumbai coaching rugby: All this on $10 m biopic

It was also in March 2004 when Willie Hetaraka, India’s newly appointed national rugby coach, was flying back to New Zealand with a stopover in Australia-still blinking at how destiny had contrived to bring a Maori rugger to distant Mumbai.

It was against this backdrop that the idea of Hetaraka’s biopic took shape. Boland, who has worked on stills of some Hollywood biggies like the first two Mission Impossibles and The Matrix, was charmed by Hetaraka’s typically animated narration of life in India, and the contrasting cult status of the game back home.

‘’I first noticed Boland at the ticket counter, where looking characteristically Australian, he was holding up a long queue arguing over excess luggage. ‘Just hurry up mate, get going’,’’ Hetaraka remembers roaring at him, annoyed at the Aussie’s persistence. Once on board, Boland asked to be seated next to the ‘’big Kiwi guy’’ and icy small-talk paved the way for trans-Tasman bonding.

Back in Sydney, Boland linked up with Peter Herbert, a popular producer and writer for several TV series, and the script-editing duo of Tony Cavanaugh and Simone North, whose Liberty Films is set to put together the film, for which research and writing is currently underway.

Camera crews have been tracking Hetaraka over the last year-visiting his family, colleagues and friends in New Zealand, and also dropping in at Mumbai recently and travelling to the Indian Army’s rugby base in Ahmednagar.

‘’We are interested in the dual culture angle, when a Kiwi coaches rugby in a new country-it’s the fish-out-of-water story,’’ says Herbert.

“There are also the Maori issues in his early life, and the involvement of the army, which is in the forefront of Indian sport, that make for an interesting script,’’ he continues.

“Though I was coming from a huge rugby place like New Zealand, I was also a small-towner travelling to big city Mumbai. So there were contradictory adjustments that gave rise to funny situations,’’ says Hetaraka.

Hetaraka insists Indians will be shown in a good light, avoiding the usual caricatures, with about 60 per cent of the film to be shot here. What’s in it for Hetaraka? ‘’It’s humbling to know that people who’ve worked with Keanu Reeves and Tom Cruise want to film a Maori’s story. And, I got to meet Nicole Kidman through Boland. That’s the high point!’’ Hetaraka roars.