Fans of Home and Away have been clamoring for Ari Parata’s character, Rob Kipa-Williams, to return to Summer Bay. Following the sad death of his character in a television episode in March 2022, the actor left the program.
It’s a typical soap cliche to bring back someone from the dead, with popular storylines including a secret twin brother or faking their own death. Fans speculate that Rob, a Mori actor who has grown out his hair and dons a shaggy beard, may even return as a totally other character.
The Kiwi actor tells Yahoo Lifestyle that acting is still one of his loves despite his current concentration on his Mori immersion studies and developing his Polynesian meditation app HAAAA.
The Napier native has played a variety of parts throughout the years, previously featured in the New Zealand serial opera Shortland Street and Seven’s 800 Words.
Obviously, “Are you still going to keep acting?” is one of the key queries that fans have. Definitely, definitely. I enjoy performing,” he says to us. I suppose acting functions in an intriguing manner. You never truly have a say in when it happens. Thus, I suppose for me, it just depends on when the proper opportunity presents itself,” he says.
He says he has happy memories of his time at Summer Bay and that if asked, he would go back.
“I definitely would think about returning for a brief period of time. He chuckles, “Why not? There are several intriguing hypotheses that various fans have written regarding how I might return.
‘I was blown away’: Rob’s response to his character’s tangi
Rob worked closely with the writers of Home and Away, offering advice regarding Mori culture and sharing his own experiences.
He requested if the writers would think about “honoring his culture” by giving him a tangihanga, also known as a traditional funeral or tangi, when he learned his character was going to be killed off.
“They had such guts to accept and go to such lengths. And I believe Ethan [Browne] played a significant role in identifying some very important individuals to be involved in that,” he recalls.
Ethan, who performs the role of Rob’s on-screen brother Tane Parata, assisted in carrying the coffin outside before performing an emotional haka in the sorrowful episode. When Rob watched the episode, his memory of his grandmother’s tangi was immediately brought back.
“I’m incredibly proud of what the Home and Away team accomplished. I was telling to [the writers] how well known my grandmother was when I was at her tangi. And when we took her out, there were rows upon rows upon rows of only the local iwi tribe performing the haka.
To be honest, he continues, “[I was] really blown away by it.”
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