3 months ago
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The bright young stars at tomorrow night’s Logie Awards could only hope to emulate the Hollywood success of Nicole Kidman. Yet it was a 21-year-old Kidman who told 60 Minutes reporter Mike Munro back in 1989 that she was wary of fame and would rather be a “hermit”. No such luck. For years, the names Nicole, Russell, Cate and Hugh needed no surnames when it came to Australians conquering Tinseltown.
Today, while Milly Alcock, Jacob Elordi and Kodi Smith-McPhee have garnered star attention back home, plenty of others haven’t – despite making a splash internationally. Like Sydney’s Jess Bush (pictured). She has her own doll, thanks to playing nurse Christine Chapel on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) graduate Harry Richardson’s breakout global role was in Poldark; he now plays wealthy New York heir Larry Russell in the lavish The Gilded Age, showing on Paramount+. Cody Fern, recipient of the 2014 Heath Ledger Scholarship, appears in the mega-budget AppleTV+ sci-fi series, Foundation.
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“Thanks to the internet, actors can audition anywhere,” says casting director Dave Newman. “Many are now skipping the traditional route of ‘overnight success’ after spending years on a local soapie. They compete in a small pond here, which makes them resilient and creates a strong work ethic that’s recognised internationally.”
Take 2023 NIDA graduate Jack Patten, who’s landed the lead in the upcoming, mega-budget TV series Robin Hood. Similarly, 20-year-old Sydneysider Joseph Zada has been cast in the next Hunger Games movie.
Australia’s acting exports are also starting to reflect our diverse ethnic make-up. For example, 27-year-old Korean-Australian Yerin Ha is set to play the female lead in the next season of Netflix’s hit Bridgerton. Anglo-Sri Lankan actor Josh Heuston, 28, hails from Sydney’s Baulkham Hills and got his start on Heartbreak High but is best known as the dashing warrior Constantine Corrino on Dune: Prophecy.
Melbourne’s Christopher Chung, 37, is of Irish-Chinese Malaysian ancestry. He was nominated for a 2025 BAFTA for his role in the AppleTV+ series Slow Horses and will soon play Harry Beecham in Netflix’s remake of My Brilliant Career. Fellow Aussie and Sydney-born WAAPA graduate Hoa Xuande hails from a Vietnamese background. He played the lead in The Sympathizer, a 2024 big-budget HBO series opposite Robert Downey jnr.
Aussies are everywhere in Hollywood, it seems – if you know where to look.
