Hawaii-born Kapena Kea was a Radford High School junior when a member of the Radford cheerleading team invited him to go with her to a high school cheerleading competition. Kea was so impressed by what he saw that with several months training he mastered the skills he needed to make the team his senior year. Radford won the state championship and then National Grand Champions at the NCA (National Cheerleading Association) National Championships in Dallas.

From there, Kea set his sights on joining the Navarro College cheerleading team. Navarro is a junior college in Corsicana, Texas, and has one of the top-rated cheerleading programs in the nation. Kea overcame several setbacks including a torn ACL but eventually earned a spot in the program.

Fast forward to 2020 and Kea, 28, has a prominent supporting role in “Cheer,” a gripping, six-part Netflix docuseries on the Navarro cheerleading team as it prepares to compete for another national championship. The series, which premiered on Jan. 8, has quickly gained a massive number of fans, including celebrities Ellen DeGeneres, Reese Witherspoon, Chrissy Teigen and Jonathan Van Ness (“Queer Eye”).

My first reaction watching “Cheer” is that what the Navarro team does equates to Olympic-level gymnastics. It is dramatic, physically demanding and obviously dangerous. How do you think team cheerleading would fit as an Olympic sport in, say, 2024?

We’ve been talking about that for a couple of years now on the collegiate level and how to shift some of the things we do to look more appealing to the regular audience. It’s actually been granted provisional status (as an Olympic sport) and could debut in Paris in 2024.

“Cheer” held my interest from the first minute — for the amazing cheerleading routines, for the revealing footage of some of the team members, and for the story of the preparations for the national championship competition in Daytona, Fla. How did Netflix come to Navarro and tell you they wanted to do the show?

In the fall of 2017 we learned that Netflix was interested in doing a show about us. It took a lot of convincing of (the school administration) to make sure that we were going to meet the criteria, and that the show wouldn’t be exposing things that they don’t want the whole public to see about our school. They filmed a pilot in the spring of 2018 and then we did the show in 2018 and 2019.

I was surprised they went so deeply into some of the team members’ personal lives. How much of that was part of the plan?

I have no idea. None of this was scripted or staged. They filmed everything we did. They chose people that they wanted to follow. I don’t know how or why they made those decisions, but I think they knew that some of them had had rough childhoods or certain things (about them) that they thought would push the story along more.

I don’t think it counts as a “spoiler” that we learn that you are also interested in acting. Do you have a timetable for pursuing that — or would you have time while Navarro is on break to do theater here in Hawaii?

I would love to come back and do theater in Hawaii. I have some things scheduled in LA, but with how successful I’ve been in cheerleading and choreographing I couldn’t give that up for something I know I can do later down the line. Cheerleading takes a lot of energy and a lot of creativity and a lot of time, and while I’m young I want to keep doing it. I’ve lived every dream that I’ve imagined. Later on, I don’t want to have any regrets.

Is there something you would like to be doing in, say, five years?

I hope to open an all-star gym in Hawaii just to get cheerleading from Hawaii on the map. There are a couple of programs here but I feel like with the credentials that I have and the experience that I have that I could definitely put Hawaii on the map. And, sometime later, I’d like to get into acting at least part time.

Do you think there’ll be a “Cheer” sequel or a second season?

Our fingers are crossed! I would love for there to be a sequel.