Logie-winner Miranda Tapsell on coming home again for her sequel to hit rom-com Top End Wedding

Darwin-born star Miranda Tapsell has been back in the NT filming the long-awaited sequel to her popular rom-com Top End Wedding.

Miranda Tapsell is filming the sequel to her popular rom-com Top End Wedding.

Double Logie-winner Miranda Tapsell says she has a “fire in the belly” to be finally filming the sequel to her hit movie Top End Wedding.

The Darwin-born star of Love Child and Doctor Doctor is currently shooting rom-com, Top End Bub in the city of her birth as well as on location in the Northern Territory, the Tiwi Islands and Adelaide, and the eight-part series is expected to debut on Prime Video next year.

Top End Wedding, which told the story of high-powered Adelaide lawyer who returns to Darwin to marry her English fiance (Bohemian Rhapsody star Gwylim Lee) was the highest grossing Australian film of 2019, taking more than $5 million at the box office and winning acclaim at festivals around the world, including the prestigious Sundance Festival.

Tapsell, who co-wrote both projects with regular collaborator Josh Tyler, has been working on the follow-up for several years, and is thrilled to be coming back home to reprise her role as highly-strung lawyer Lauren.

Miranda Tapsell and Gwylim Lee in Top End Wedding.

“Being on set with this wonderful team and cast is inspiring,” she said. “We’ve all been working on this for so long, so ‘finally’ being in production is like a fire in the belly, we are here, we are doing it and I just couldn’t be prouder.”

Lee, who played guitarist Brian May in the hit Queen biopic, is also returning as Lauren’s husband Ned, as are Total Control and The Bill star Huw Higginson and Ursula Yovich as Daffy and Trevor, Lauren’s parents; Shari Sebbens as Ronelle, Elaine Crombie as Dana and Tracy Mann as Annie, Ned’s mum. Joining the cast is Rob Collins, Brooke Satchwell, Guy Simon, Clarence Ryan and making her acting debut as Taya aka ‘Bub’ is Gladys-May Kelly.

Top End Bub follows the life of Lauren and Ned as they unexpectedly become parents to an eight-year-old and leave Adelaide to reconnect with family in the Top End. Tapsell and her husband of six years James Colley also became a parents in December 2021, when she gave birth to daughter Grace Birri-Pa Purnarrika.

Miranda Tapsell is reprising her role in Top End Bub, a sequel to Top End Wedding. Picture: Scott Ehler

Tapsell has often spoken of her pride in her roots and her desire to showcase Indigenous culture through her work and through storytelling and famously called for more representation on Australian screens in her Logies acceptance speech in 2015.

“I am often burdened with having to justify why people should care about Aboriginal people or why they should embrace a culture that is 65,000 years old and I think it’s really nice if the people who are on board and do want to know more about Indigenous Australia, they can come and see the films that I am now going to make like Top End Wedding,” she said when the movie was released.

“I am so glad that I got to show off where I grew up because I am so proud of where I grew up. I am so proud of the people who have raised me and shaped me into the woman I am today. I am so glad that I got to make a film that was a love letter to them.”

Originally published as Logie-winner Miranda Tapsell on coming home again for her sequel to hit rom-com Top End Wedding