The Pacific

Peter Watt is the bestselling Australian author of more than ten novels of historical fiction, including the Colonial series and the Frontier series. His life experiences have included time as a soldier, articled clerk to a solicitor, prawn-trawler deckhand, builder's labourer, pipe layer, real-estate salesman, private investigator, police sergeant and adviser to the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary. He has lived and worked with Aborigines, Islanders, Vietnamese and Papua New Guineans, and speaks, reads and writes Vietnamese and Tok Pisin (a creole used in PNG).

Akira Matsumoto is a bilingual screen actor who has played roles in internationally released film and TV. In recent years, Akira has worked alongside Temuera Morrison in feature film The Brighton Miracle and appeared as a Tibetan monk in Rake, alongside Richard Roxburgh. He has worked on many officially selected and award-winning projects including short film 2AM, a psychological horror – where Akira played a psychologist – that has had 45 Official Selections worldwide, collecting 14 wins in multiple categories. Akira is fluent in Japanese and enjoys working with his Standard American and Japanese accents.