Dayna Pomare-Pai (Ngāpuhi) is an award-winning stuntwoman to the stars, but it’s what she does on the ground that’s shaping the future of the industry in Aotearoa New Zealand. Te Rauhiringa Brown caught up with Pomare-Pai on her stomping grounds in the Hunua Ranges for TVNZ’s Marae.
Watch part one of this two-part report on TVNZ+ now.
When she’s not on a film set, you can find Pomare-Pai at home on Sky High Ranch, training grounds to the next generation of stunt performers.
“Everyone who comes here says it feels like therapy,” she said.
On this visit, the kind of therapy students are going through at the New Zealand Stunt School – which she founded – require swords and shields.
“We’ve just done three days of Roman riding and saddle falls and swords, and all sorts of things, and all horse-related stuff. Then, today, we’re just bringing in some of the New Zealand stunt course students and getting them a bit around the horses.”
At one stage they are paired off to go through the motions of pulling people off a barrel in a scenario set up to mimic someone on horseback being attacked. They each get a turn at being the victim and perpetrator.
For trainee Puriri Koria, stunt work was never on the radar.
“There’s some of us here that are new to this, like myself. I was at first – I didn’t know stunts was a thing.”
He said he “gave it a go” and found it was like play fighting. “But that’s what I love about this kind of mahi, the environment, these kinds of people.”
He’s relishing the opportunity to learn off one of the best in the industry – “she’s kei runga noa atu.” (“She’s top of the game.”)
Pomare-Pai first founded the school in 2010, and then, soon after, the New Zealand Action Talent Agency to represent homegrown talent for international projects.
“When we were training them up and then kind of going, ‘well, they’re so good how do we get them work?’”
From there onwards, the pathway’s foundation was laid. She started to bring others to run the agency and put graduates forward for stunt work. People from all over the world travel to take part in training at the ranch.
In 2020, she brought her two worlds together, launching the New Zealand Horse Team where her love for horses and stunt work became one.
“We’ve actually been really busy, like we’ve just finished a six-month job,” she said.
“We had 75 horses on that job over the six months – a whole big horse team of wranglers. So everybody was really, really busy, and then there’s other horse jobs coming this year, and you know, we had heaps last year come through from commercials to Netflix shows.”
A horse-riding stuntwoman is born
Pomare-Pai fell into stunt work when she was asked to audition for a role on the iconic 90’s hit show Xena: Warrior Princess.
“I was so active – I was a horse rider, dancer, gymnast – I did all these things and they were like, ‘you’d be great’, you know, ‘give this a go’.”
She got the gig and it was the beginning of a 30-plus year career stunt doubling for some of the biggest names in Hollywood. Her past credits, under her former name Dayna Grant, include Mad Max: Fury Road, Snow White and the Huntsman, and Wonderwoman.
Despite her success in stunting, it comes second to her love for horses.
“Horses has been my thing from day one. Like, I’d go and do stunts and I’d come back and my thing was getting back to the horses.”
She recalls fondly how her dad would tie her into a saddle before she could even walk or talk.
“I was only just sitting up and we would do six-week cattle drives and stuff like that and he’d worked a big station. He’d climb in the saddle, and I was happy on the horse. We’d go off and I’d fall asleep on there,” she said.
“I felt more comfortable on horseback, like, if I was crying, he’d put me on a horse. Straight away stopped crying. Happy as, go to sleep. So, yeah, that was from my dad.”
Next chapter
In 2021, Pomare-Pai sustained a serious head injury on set – a brutal reminder of the risks of stunt work. Scans later revealed an 8mm aneurysm that required urgent surgery.
She raised the funds to go private and underwent a lengthy recovery stint.
“I’d spend days in a hyperbaric oxygen therapy chamber, and I learnt to meditate, which I never thought somebody with ADHD would be able to do.
“I didn’t think I could teach myself to meditate, I didn’t think it was possible, but I was put into a state where I had to learn how to meditate and that has now helped me out in life.”
Now, she’s turning that experience into helping those who need it the most.
For part two of Dayna Pomare-Pai’s story – Watch Marae on TVNZ1 on Sunday at 10.30am or on TVNZ+
