Jemaine Atea Mahana Clement (born 10 January 1974)[2] is a New Zealand actor, comedian, musician, and filmmaker.

He has had featured parts in films such as Eagle vs Shark (2007), Gentlemen Broncos (2009), Men in Black 3 (2012), People Places Things (2015), Humor Me (2017), The Festival (2018) and Avatar: The Way of Water (2022).

Jemaine Atea Mahana Clement[3] was born on 10 January 1974 in Masterton in the Wairarapa,[4] and was raised there in a working-class family by his mother and grandmother Maikara with his two brothers.

[6][7] His Pākehā father, Robert, was employed at the freezing works and struggled with alcoholism, leaving home when Clement was a child.

Robert would later become a stained glass artist in Midhurst, Taranaki; Clement would later reconnect with his father as an adult and now enjoys a "strong and loving" relationship with him.

He has talked of his regrets about this and has emotionally spoken of the physical abuse his grandmother suffered at school for speaking te reo Māori.

In 2004, the Humourbeasts toured New Zealand in a stage show titled The Untold Tales of Maui,[10] a reworking of the traditional Maori legends of Māui.

He has worked with Stutter on two more films to date: the low budget ghost comedy Diagnosis: Death and the drama Predicament, based on the book by late New Zealand novelist Ronald Hugh Morrieson.

Clement also has a role in American comedy Gentlemen Broncos, directed by Napoleon Dynamite's Jared Hess.

In 2015, Clement voiced a "mind-reading fart"[21] on an episode of the Adult Swim animated series Rick and Morty, where he performed the song "Goodbye Moonmen".

In 2016, Clement lent his voice to Tamatoa, a giant coconut crab, in the Disney animated film Moana, both in English, and the Māori dub.