When Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi first auditioned for “Predator: Badlands,” he didn’t know he was trying out to play the first of the titular aliens to be the hero, instead of a villain, in the 38-year-old franchise. In fact, he didn’t know he was auditioning for a “Predator” film at all. He wasn’t even provided with any written lines.
“All it said was ‘a creature,’” Schuster-Koloamatangi says. “The little character brief just said, ‘It’s all up to your interpretation.’”
The 24-year-old actor has had to rely on his own imagination. As a kid in Auckland, New Zealand, he relished going to his local cinema and drank in movies as often as he could. But as the child of a Tongan father and Samoan mother, “I grew up not really seeing too many Polynesians on screen,” he says. “I didn’t think it was possible, to be honest, to have a brown face on screen, especially from my end of the world.”
Instead, as part of a family of athletes, Schuster-Koloamatangi saw rugby as a possible career path. “Growing up, it’s either rugby or go to university and get a nine to five,” he says. “Acting was never, never something I thought was even possible.”
Even so, he found himself drawn to performing. In middle school, he started his own YouTube channel — until it was taken down for copyright infringement (which he didn’t know at the time would be an issue). In high school, he acted in school plays and took a media studies course his final year, where he met two Tongan filmmakers and peppered them with questions. A few months later, they called him in to audition for a small role in a New Zealand miniseries about a Kiwi rugby player. He nailed it.
“It was only, like, three scenes, and my character died,” he says. But from there he landed an agent, and then the lead role in the 2021 miniseries “The Panthers,” about a group of Polynesian youths who form their own political movement inspired by the American Black Panther Party. It was then “the switch started.”
“I’ve never been good at anything off the bat,” he says. “I’ve always just kind of been average or below average, so I’ve had to really work at things to be good. It’s cultivated just a ruthless work ethic.” He took acting courses to hone his craft and dedicated himself to the profession.
“I have big ideas,” he says, breaking into an infectious grin. “When I decided fully that this is the career path that I want to chase, it came with a lot of big visions. … I see myself going to the Oscars. I see myself with all the top players. I see myself being on the biggest stage possible. And I’ll get there somehow.”
Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, Elle Fanning and Dan Trachtenberg at the “Predator: Badlands” premiere in London.
Lia Toby/Variety
With his performance in “Predator: Badlands,” Schuster-Koloamatangi has taken his first big step into that spotlight. He plays Dek, a young member of the alien species known as Yautja who is cast out by his father for being the “runt” of the clan. To prove himself, Dek travels to Genna — known as one of the deadliest planets in the galaxy due to its profusion of lethal animal and plant life — so he can hunt and kill the Kalisk, understood to be an unkillable predator in its own right.
Because the role is so intensely physical, for Schuster-Koloamatangi’s second audition, director Dan Trachtenberg (who also helmed the 2022 “Predator” prequel film “Prey” and the animated feature “Predator: Killer of Killers,” released in June) had the actor tackle an obstacle course with a team of stunt performers — some of whom were also gunning for the part.
“The way Dimitrius moved was so cool, so ferocious — so much cooler than the stuntmen were doing it, frankly,” Trachtenberg says. “What I was not prepared for was him throwing down on set and really being incredibly powerful and intense. He just insanely elevated the movie far past what we could have expected.”
Schuster-Koloamatangi’s only co-star, Elle Fanning, plays Thia, an android who’s been stranded on Genna without her legs. Dek carries her on his back for most of the film. It’s a fitting metaphor for the task that faced Schuster-Koloamatangi, who has the weight of the entire film on his fearsome shoulders, in a performance delivered entirely in the invented Yautja language, wearing a full Yautja body suit with his face replaced via performance capture CGI.
He spoke with Variety about his unconventional audition process, the how he bonded — literally and figuratively — with Fanning, the experience of shooting in his home country and how he mastered the Yautja language.
Since you didn’t know the character, let alone the movie, at first, how did you audition for “Predator: Badlands”?
I had to do one in English, one in an alien language that’s up to you to make up. I had a lot of fun just remixing Samoan and Tongan and gibberish. From there, I got a call back, and it was an obstacle course. I was like, what is this job?
How did you approach the obstacle course?
Because I am competitive, I had to keep reminding myself, “It’s not a race.” I had to keep slowing down to focus on performance, just show as much creature as I could. They had been drip feeding us information throughout. I was finding out, like, the director is Dan Trachtenberg, the studio is (20th Century). I was doing a little research in the background, like, “Wait, this could be Predator, but I’m not sure.” So I just took a swing and was aiming my performance towards a Predator-like creature. I think it worked.
Had you done obstacle course, Ninja Warrior-type stuff before?
No, that was my first time. I was like, “What am I even doing here?” They had stunt men hanging around doing flips and whatnot. The people that I was auditioning with, a few of them were stunt people that had been in the game for a long time. It would have been easy to kind of overthink it. But I don’t know. I grew up playing sports and just having the mindset, “You’re supposed to be here.” Not getting too caught up in imposter syndrome, you know? Just give it your best. If it doesn’t work out, it’s not mean to be. But it was really exciting. I felt like I was in “Wipeout.” I was just missing the big red balls. It was cool, man.
20th Century Studios
Once you got the part, when did you understand that you were going to be carrying Elle Fanning on your back?
So that’s funny, too. The first read through of the script, I saw that Dek carries Thia on his backpack, and I was like, “This is a great idea, but this will be like, CGI, right? This isn’t actually going to be a thing because she has legs in real life.” But with Dan, he can make anything a reality. We were rehearsing with the stunt team for a month all the different rigs that they had come up with to carry Elle on my back. It worked really well. Elle’s legs were in a sling. They both had us in harnesses. When we were strapped up, we couldn’t get ourselves out. Someone had to unscrew us to release us. It was a massive learning process. They were making up rigs on the spot to accommodate the both of us. I think it adds texture to the film, and it makes it feel real and authentic. You can see it on Dek’s face.
I understand that you met Elle when you started work in rehearsal. How did you break the ice there?
It happened so naturally that I couldn’t even tell you when exactly we just started clicking. I had my reservations a little bit before meeting her. She’s a massive name, and with that comes a little bit of uncertainty on how she might be. But Dan said that Elle was really down to earth and lovely to work with, and from the first second of properly talking to her, I could tell she was going to be a breeze. Once we were strapped up, I was always checking in and making sure she was good, and I think she really appreciated that. So the trust formed quite fast.
We had literal hours strapped together. A lot of the time they would just leave us strapped because it was too much time and effort to release us while they moved around cameras. There would be days where we just stayed linked up and would just talk about random things.
I imagine bathroom breaks must have been very tricky.
Oh man, those were the worst. In the suit, you can’t really get in and out too easy. So I’m kind of cramped up in the bathroom stall. My body’s in a C shape, trying to track the aim. It was a whole process. If someone had a camera in there, they would make a lot of money from the positions I tried to be in to go to the bathroom.
You also performed in the Yautja language, invented by linguist Britton Watkins solely for this film and “Predators: Killer of Killers.”
I thought I wouldn’t have to learn any lines because in the audition process — they were like, “Make up a language.” So I was like, “Man, I can just freestyle the whole time. This is great!” Later on, they told me I had to learn a whole language. So that was fun.
What was your process to learn that language?
I was on Zoom calls with the linguist, probably three to four times a week the month before (filming). When I wasn’t doing stunt work and training, I was at home, drilling the language over and over. That’s the only way to learn any language. You just have to fully immerse yourself in it. And because it was constructed like a real language, there was a lot of material that Britton had come up with to learn. I’d just have it in the car when I’m driving everywhere, on my speaker at home, when I’m chilling, practicing. The clicking with the throat was probably the hardest just get my head around, because you have to breathe out while breathing in at the same time. It was just getting my mouth and my throat used to those movements, and a lot of honey ginger teas.
Were you always speaking the language on set, or were you sometimes doing it in English?
The majority of the time was in the language. There would be a few days where we’d get new lines, like, 10 minutes before we shot, and we couldn’t get the translation fast enough from Britton, so those would have to be shot in English and then later (recorded) again in Yautja.
You grew up in New Zealand, so how did it feel to shoot in your home country?
I was very proud to show off my backyard. You’d hear all the Americans raving about the landscape, and I’m standing there like, “Yeah, this is standard” — but in actuality, I hadn’t been to some of these locations before and I was just as in awe. Hūnua Falls, Bethells Beach, the Redwoods in Rotorua — these were all places that I had never been before, even though it was my home. A lot of locals don’t really take the time to see their own country. They always feel like they have to sightsee somewhere else. I was very blessed and fortunate because of the access the film gave us. If it wasn’t for the shooting, I wouldn’t even be allowed in some of these places that are blocked off to the public.
20TH CENTURY STUDIOS
What was it like to see your performance transformed into Dek’s face as a Yautja for the first time?
I only just watched the full cut when we were in London for the premiere. I hadn’t seen any cuts with CGI when I started doing ADR. It was just still my face. So I didn’t really know if this was going to work. I worked really hard on the Predator’s animalistic and primal behaviors, that presence that he has in all the previous films. But at the same time, I was also trying to inject my own unique flavor to Dek — they shouldn’t all look and be the same.
But once I saw all of the finished product, it was so cool to see. And it was really cool to be able to separate myself from it as well. A lot of the times when I’m watching things that I’m in, I can’t help but just nitpick at things. But since it looks like an alien, I can just watch the story and fully invest, like an audience member.
Now that you’ve got your first Hollywood movie behind you, what about the past year has most surprised you?
It sounds really bad, but I think because I’ve seen it so clearly in my mind before that it didn’t really come as too much as a surprise. The best thing that has come out of this year was I was able to bring my family to the premiere in L.A., and they got to see me work. None of them are in the industry, so none of them really know anything about what I do. I’ll go home and tell them, like, “Work was good,” but they didn’t really know even what to ask.
Do you know what you’re next going to do?
I’m working on a local New Zealand film at the moment. I land on Saturday back home. I go into rehearsals on Sunday and then we start shooting on Monday. I get to get back to my roots a little bit. It follows a young Tongan immigrant who is trying to make a living for himself back in the ’90s. It goes from a comedy-drama to a thriller. I’m really excited for it. I get to play human for this one, which is great.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
