John-Paul “JP” Foliaki, the breakout Tongan star of Red, White and Brass, is doing it for the culture.
“Our ancestors told stories for thousands of years, and you know what the common theme is?” Foliaki asks, reprising his film role of Maka in the debut season of Red, White and Brass: The Play, which had its opening night on June 20 at the ASB Waterfront Theatre in Auckland, New Zealand. The answer, he reveals, is that “nobody tells us how to.”
Backstage in his dressing room, before stepping out to open the show, the 29-year-old actor is deep in thought. “I just want to make my country, my family and my friends — the people who have believed in me up to this point — proud,” Foliaki tells Teen Vogue. “Make that sacrifice worthwhile, worthy of the struggle, worth everything that people have poured into me.”
The play, adapted from the film by Leki Jackson-Bourke and inspired by true events from the 2011 Rugby World Cup, follows scrappy Tongan superfan Maka on his mission to score tickets to the Tonga v. France match, going so far as inventing a brass band to play as pre-game entertainment, in four weeks, with no experience.
At the play’s climax, channeling Maka, Foliaki says: “This is for those who came before us and those who will come after us.” It’s the one part of the show that cracks him open. Felt in that moment is everything that JP Foliaki knows about sacrifice, and the wisdom he’s still learning about when to fly the flag for Tonga, and when to let himself fly on his own.
We first meet at rehearsal for the play in late May. From the jump, Foliaki treats me like a brother, one of his tokos from Southside. There’s little to discern him from Maka — a public nuisance, I point out. “That's me. I'm the public nuisance. I get kicked out of bars,” he laughs.
“Golden child, great at everything, Prefect, 1st XV rugby team,” are descriptors of… Foliaki's older brother. “And then I come along like, when can I go to the club?” he says. “Even though you have good leadership skills in class,” teachers would say, “we don’t know where you’re going to lead them.”
Foliaki has this tendency when he speaks; his voice hits a forte, his eyes grow, it’s borderline theatrical. He is the textbook definition of a yapper, but you want to listen. Simply put, he’s māfana. A word that no translation seems to do justice. “The state of being warm,” he explains. “The feeling in your heart when you see people that you relate to, people from your culture, people that you love, doing well.”
He’s a brown boy on his way to the global stage, 676 to the world, and it shows in the way he holds himself. With dignity, a thirst for excellence. But taking Maka to the stage has not been devoid of challenges. “I'm getting my ass kicked every day,” he says. “You learn the lines, then you forget the choreography; you learn the choreo, you forget the lines.” And he almost declined the role. Cast the role fresh, he’d thought, give someone younger, hungrier, the chance to originate Maka for the stage.
“I do love Tonga. I love everything about being Tongan, but I didn’t know if I could handle whatever's gonna come my way from it.” It’s that vicious depletion of energy on show night, and then fronting up at the stage door for the community afterwards, that worried him. After several prayers, he took the role.
When the show starts on opening night, the Tongan pride is palpable. Backstage, the theatre stairwell is covered in autographs from productions past. This is the first Tongan show at the ASB Waterfront, and one imagines the stairwell will soon bear the cast’s surnames, names that have come from the Islands and taken root here in Aotearoa.
Foliaki deftly cuts through tension on stage, covering the place in his dazzling charisma. There’s even a bit where the cast reenact the birth of Christ with a retooled version of Shania Twain’s “From This Moment On.” And when the company unites to sing a Tongan hymn, it’s enough to rouse the ancestors, who are surely there.
At intermission, an older pālangi gentleman reaches over to me. He’s never seen the film, this is all new to him tonight. We talk about the significance of seeing brown faces in this space that hasn’t traditionally been accommodating, how we seem to be in a time of unprecedented division; how in this theatre, we’re celebrating the things we share in common. And he dotes on Foliaki, how truly magnificent he is.
“Tongans doing the most as always,” is how Foliaki describes the U.S. and Hawai’i tour of the Red, White and Brass film last September, when fans rocked up to cinemas with boomboxes, māfana on full display. He met O.C. legends Common Kings, American Idol winner Iam Tongi, and the Tongan Prime Minister; the mayor of San Bruno gave him a certificate in recognition of the film.
Fans also knew him from Inky Pinky Ponky, a film led by Amanaki Prescott-Faletau in the role of Lisa, a young fakaleitī navigating high school bigotry and her feelings for Foliaki’s 1st XV captain, Mose. The stage show of Inky Pinky Ponky was one of the first that Foliaki saw from Pacific creatives at Māngere Arts Centre. “It was so foreign to me, but I had this longing to be part of it,” he recalls. Now he’s being recognised for that story onscreen, worldwide.
He was hesitant to play Mose. “I had to be prepared to face any kind of backlash,” he says. Would he be ready to face criticism from his community, for acting in a story about a fakaleitī character? “Knowing how important that type of story is for people in the community, that's more important to me than what anyone else could ever say.” Foliaki knows that ultimately, no one shoulders that burden more than fakaleitī in the real world.
“There's this whole new generation coming up that is dying for content,” he says of Inky Pinky Ponky’s reception. “They want to see Pacific love stories, high school stories. They want to see themselves, so they ate it up, and they did their own renditions, TikTok trends, bombing me in the DMs — and I'm like, do you guys realize I'm almost thirty. I'm not a high school student.”
Despite the love he felt on tour, it was lonely. "I'm with my family from overseas,” Foliaki remembers, “but I'm not with my village that helped me." Celebration hits different when it’s spent with those who shined your shoes and swept your path just so you could walk into your destiny. “I will have to learn, and the family back home will learn as well, that we will find our time to celebrate together, and it'll make it all worth it.”
The way Maka rounds up the church to realize his vision is exactly how Foliaki calls on his village to create his projects. “They know I’m reeling them in to help me with some dream,” he says. “They might all sit there, roll their eyes and talk sh*t, but they’ll help me. They’re there.”
At the end of the day, this man is tired. He’s growing more reserved. People “want to see that high energy, that māfana, they want to see the guy that's flying the flag. They don't want a half-assed person that's got low energy,” he says. “Tongans will be so generous with their love, and you want to reciprocate that, but the energy levels sometimes aren't there, so it did take a lot out of me.” But he’s catching on: “You don't have to always be the person to fly the flag — let someone else do it… Representation is so important, but not to the point where you lose yourself in the process.”
He’s still figuring out a way to talk about how taxing those interactions can be, without appearing ungrateful. “Who am I to complain about having to show up, take photos, do shout-out videos,” he asks himself, “like, you haven't cracked Hollywood dox.”
But his celebrity is intrinsic to the Tongan community. Unless you’re Beyoncé, he notes, celebrities can walk around Southside or stroll through night markets unnoticed — not Foliaki. “This is our audience,” Foliaki’s village tells him, “This is the response and love that they have to give you, that’s how they see you. Don’t worry about Hollywood.”
Foliaki takes regular social media breaks. “I was just tired of being so connected to everything, or people having such easy access to me. I’m Tongan down. I would do anything for the young people. But there comes a time where you’re driving around Auckland visiting schools, and your car’s on E,” he laughs.
The older he gets, he understands his family’s concern when he threw in the towel on a major accountancy firm — equipped with a law and sociology degree — in favor of his more liberating, fulfilling path. “You can grow a little resentful,” he says. “You feel like you’re not being seen, or like they don’t believe in you.” But higher education is their arena, and his is in the arts. He sees that now. His law studies and corporate work still nurtured his hustle and grind, the “catalyst” to get him here.
“I'm a huge advocate for people to follow their passions and be relentless in that pursuit of them, because I cannot imagine my life without the arts, considering how deep I'm in it now,” he says. His nieces and nephews, the whole fāmili, have a host of heroes to look up to. The kids tell Foliaki they want to be actors, singers, rugby players, doctors: “I love that those conversations are normal to our little ones.”
In his paternal grandmother’s house in Central Auckland, Foliaki softens. He invites me there in early June, two weeks before opening night; candles are burning as we enter, and he shuffles off to greet his grandmother, fragments of Tongan and English spilling out from her bedroom.
The house is warmly lived in. A statue of Mary has pride of place; there’s a cross on the wall; artwork embellished with the words ofa, fiefia, and melino send wishes of love, joy and peace from their perch atop the piano. There are funeral programs everywhere, dating back years, like they’ll never be untacked from the wall. Here, “In memory of” is forever.
Portraits hang in the living room of Foliaki’s elders in graduation regalia; this family has made doctors and lawyers and accountants — and now, an actor-musician. Foliaki is serving tea (a change from the Milo and toast he remembers as a child) when his uncle passes by. “No biscuits? That’s a bit piss-poor,” he jokes. Foliaki hits back, laughing, “I think someone ate them.”
Foliaki settles into his chair, and the room consumes him. Something in its history forces his grandparents to the front of his mind; his 97-year-old grandmother in the room adjacent, his maternal grandmother being cared for at his home in South Auckland, and his late grandfather, Dr. Leopino Foliaki.
He does wonder sometimes, when people say his grandfather, a man “strict on education,” would be proud of him — would he be?
“My grandfather was such a man of service,” he says. The bilingual health clinic his grandfather started still operates today.
Foliaki’s youth, the days of being “rebellious, forever pushing the envelope,” was spent here. A refuge during a tumultuous adolescence, “something that was familiar, with that peace and unconditional love that your grandparents have for you.” And now it’s time to return the care as his grandmothers age.
“That’s what we miss about being away from the Islands, we don't have that village that we did back there, where someone's always around, and we can rotate to really uplift our elders and take care of them the same way they've taken care of us when we were younger.”
When Foliaki was shooting the Red, White and Brass film during the strict pandemic lockdown, his grandmother fell ill. “There was a chance that she could pass, and that I would have to get in touch and maybe say my goodbyes,” he says. If he traveled back home, he might not have made it back to continue production. His mind was fixed on that, even on camera; a struggle considering Maka’s frenetic energy. “When I watch the scene, I can see it in my face that I'm not all there.”
“Family will be a non-negotiable, especially for things like that,” he adds. “But I know there will be times that I will have to make tough calls, or where I won't even have the choice, because I'm in the work.” Grandma’s thankfully still here, and Foliaki “caught a glimpse of what it feels like to be living your dream and having to make tough sacrifices to get that job done.”
His father, a lawyer, represented a client who was subjected to Dawn raid tactics in 2023 — and this was after PM Jacinda Ardern’s public apology for the ‘70s injustices. That could only ever empower someone like Foliaki, whose formative years were molded by his parents’ giving nature.
“It was so normal for me to have strangers at home asking, is your dad here? And then my dad having to help out, because someone's gonna get deported in the morning.” They’d pay legal fees with food; come Easter or Christmas, clients would show up with whole pigs. “They don't have much, but when they do, that's how they've been able to show their love and thanks for my dad, so monetary things have never really been important to me.”
“I've grown up seeing my mom work extremely hard, because she got her PhD, but she also had to raise us.” The women in his life, across generations, made sacrifices for their families; the men were called to serve the community both near and far away; aunties and uncles stepped up to help, too.
“I've seen what it looks like for sacrifices to be made for a greater purpose, which might be for the community, might be for the culture, and in turn, it comes back to uplift you in ways that you could never have thought of or even prayed for.”
Guilt hits him often, that he’s putting on a show for other people, yet he can’t help his own family. “But this is what their sacrifices were for, and I can’t wait to see their faces when they see me, their descendant, and their culture on a stage that's never been done before.” Sometimes it’s just him casting that doubt, feeding the beast; he apologizes for not being over to the family home, but they understand — Foliaki’s craft is his act of service.
If all that is for the culture, then Foliaki covets music for himself. A few days after opening night, he’s in his dressing room shower styling his afro for the show. His speaker is blasting “Funga Sia” by 'Ulise Pole'o, before moving into something sexy, sensual — from Normani’s mouth to Foliaki’s ears — it’s “1:59,” much closer to his sound as an artist.
“Music is the one space where I can just write whatever I feel, I can push the envelope in other ways, and not necessarily feel the need to put my culture at the forefront,” he says. His heart lies where hip hop intertwines with R&B, dated around the late ‘90s and early naughts. He rattles off his influences: Babyface, 112, Boyz II Men, K-Ci & JoJo, B2K, Destiny's Child, Ashanti, JaRule.
“That's where I'm wanting to be, in that moment of release.” The joy, stripping away the inhibitions. This is his space for play; to have fun, enjoy himself, but also “allow people to catch a vibe.” He can do it in his own way, which includes collaborating with Black artists, for two reasons: “One, it makes a fire ass song, and two…it's my way of acknowledging them, like how am I going to have a reggaeton beat and not want to do a song with a Black artist?”
This music is “something that's coming directly from my heart and soul,” he says, but it doesn’t need to be so deep in context. He’s written from hurt before, and rebirth and celebration. But now he’s settling into music that doesn’t need to be taken so seriously.
He’s across the entire creative process, because he wants to be. He knows that no one will care about his craft more than he does. At the songwriting stage, the music videos, the way it can be performed on stage, are already in his mind. “It's the one thing I have that's mine. It's not written by or dictated by someone else.”
His previous singles “Rock the Boat” and “Pull Up” are merely tasters for what’s to come. There is an EP on the way, and on it he’s evolved beyond those tracks already. He’s focused on one thing: “Just getting my voice out there and figuring out what my sound actually is.”
Foliaki will always do it for the culture. And he’s going to do it for himself, too. “In every movement in the history of mankind, art has always been at the forefront of bringing people together,” he says. “There is a demand for brown stories, indigenous stories, and they'll pull up and they'll support it. But the people that are in those positions to make that happen need to fight for it and allow those stories to come through.”
As we wrap our interviews, Foliaki has two weeks left of Red, White and Brass: The Play, and then some much needed rest — though his self-reflection has already begun. He’s never been more sure of his decision to leave the corporate world. If he hadn’t followed his heart, he’d be dishonoring the sacrifice of his village. He’s still navigating the act of putting in the hours for his craft, but losing those hours with family. He'll always ride for his village. Because there’s one thing that’s always true about a Foliaki man. His heart beats for Tonga.
