Ones to watch in 2017: Meet the fresh new faces that will have us talking this year
ANOTHER big year is upon us and while it is always fun to look back at what has already passed here we take a different tack and look at who is going to be big this year.
Confidential
Don't miss out on the headlines from Confidential. Followed categories will be added to My News.
ANOTHER big year is upon us and while it is always fun to look back at what has already passed here we take a different tack.
These are the faces you need to keep an eye out for in the year ahead in the world of entertainment.
Some you may have seen before while others you are likely to get to know a lot better.
MUSIC
Jess Kent
IT’S just a big busking gig. That was how Jess Kent tried to wrap her head around performing on Coldplay’s colossal stages for the final leg of their world tour late last year.
“Someone you look up to gives you that support, it’s special and you want to do it justice,” Kent says.
Like all overnight successes, Kent’s breakthrough was an entire young lifetime in the making. By the time her family immigrated to Adelaide, her musician father had kicked off her guitar instruction at the age of seven. At 18 she headed to Sydney deciding to abandon her communication studies at college to give music a shot.
She uploaded snippets of songs on to Instagram where one was spotted by Australian hit maker Andrew Klippel, and he took on her management and teamed her with producer Nicky Night Time. They worked up a bunch of demos which fused hip hop vocal styling, alt-pop sensibilities, reggae and dance hall flavours and beat-heavy electronica.
The breakthrough came when Kent uploaded Get Down to Triple J’s Unearthed music hub. “I uploaded Get Down at midnight, woke up at 7am to an email from Unearthed telling me they were going to start playing it straight away,” she says, still incredulous. “Four weeks later, it was No. 1 on the site.”
And then things really started moving. Kent won an Unearthed competition and landed the opening slot on the Field Day festival in Sydney’s Domain on New Year’s Day.
She was signed to Capitol Records in America, recorded her debut EP This Is Jess Kent which was released in December. In the months in between, Coldplay heard Get Down and booked her for their Australian and New Zealand concerts.
After her run on the Laneway Festival — and an inevitable strong finish in Triple J’s Hottest 100 poll — Kent heads to the US to record her debut album and promote whichever of the excellent five songs including current single The Sweet Spot and Trolls the Americans decide to release.
With her label enjoying considerable success at home and the US for other world class Australian artists including Troye Sivan and Seconds Of Summer, Jess Kent is poised for a watershed year.
Tash Sultana
ONE of the most played artists on Triple J Unearthed this year, the 21-year-old musical prodigy who has taught herself more than 10 instruments is primed for a global breakthrough in 2017.
The music is undoubtedly strong enough: her single Jungle is a strong contender to finish in the Hottest 100, her expressive voice and hypnotic guitar hooks making the song an irresistible earworm which has been played more than four million times on Spotify. A close second in popularity is the title track of her six-track debut EP Notion.
Sultana recently enlisted We Are Unified supremo Jaddan Comerford to join her management team with the primary mission to spearhead her assault on America.
Before we lose her to foreign shores, Sultana will be one of the biggest drawcards at this year’s Laneway Festival which hits Sydney on February 4.
FASHION
Duskii
WITH fans including Kendall Jenner, Gigi Hadid and Karlie Kloss, luxury active wear brand Duskii is poised to hit the big time.
Orders from overseas retailers have increased and founder Patreece Botheras says sales have double within a year.
“We were lucky to be picked up by Net-a-Porter in 2014 and that level of exposure helped us pick up editorial shoots with magazines including Vogue,” he says.
The brand has big plans for 2017, with a stand-alone parade scheduled at Australian Fashion Week in May, the launch of the Duskii Girl diffusion line, and an activewear range which will steer the label into the lucrative gym wear category.
MOVIES
Thomas Cocquerel
With no Home And Away on his resume, NIDA graduate Cocquerel is one of those Aussies who most are going to first discover when he’s sold back to us by the US. He spent his younger years in the US, before going to high school in Sydney, and is now based in LA and has five films awaiting release in 2017.
Foremost among them are YA novel adaptation The Tribes Of Palos Verdes, co-starring Jennifer Garner, and Billionaire Boys Club, the true story of privileged LA kids whose money-making scheme turned deadly in the 1980s. Cocquerel joins two of Hollywood’s most in-demand young males, Taron Egerton and Ansel Elgort, in that drama.
But most tempting is Table 19, a comedy about the misfits table at a wedding in which he hits the dancefloor with Anna Kendrick — and keeps his Aussie accent.
Khaled Khalafalla
Born in Saudi Arabia to Egyptian parents, Khaled Khalafalla moved to rural New Zealand in primary school before he finally settled in Australia.
He hit the stand-up comedy circuit five years ago and was an instant hit, with even his earliest festival shows winning rave reviews.
After entering season three of ABC TV’s Upper Middle Bogan in 2016 as gym junkie Younis, in 2017 Khalafalla makes the leap into film with Ali’s Wedding — a comedy billed as Australia’s first Muslim rom-com.
Khalafalla plays the no-hoper younger brother and steals every scene he’s in.
Aaron L. McGrath
Already an experienced television performer (The Secret River, The Code, Redfern Now, The Doctor Blake Mysteries) this year Aaron McGrath comes of age playing the titular character in only his second feature film, Jasper Jones.
In the movie adaptation of the beloved Aussie book, he plays the mixed-race outcast whose discovery of something terrible sparks drama that envelops a town.
While Hugo Weaving and Toni Collette provide the star power and gravity, director Rachel Perkins says McGrath is “the soul of” Jasper Jones, delivering an “intuitive and wrenching performance”.
TELEVISION
Hoge’s Josh Lawson
THE story of Paul Hogan is set to be one of the must watch shows of the year.
Filmed in Queensland with an all-star cast, including local boy Josh Lawson in the title role, Seven has reportedly gone all out to produce an amazing production.
Lawson has said he took the role very seriously and felt the need to ensure the show did Hogan justice.
A NIDA graduate Lawson has been a regular on our screens, but working alongside a stellar local cast including Justine Clarke and Ryan Corr means this could be the show to promote him into the big league.
800 Word’s Melina Vidler and Benson Jack Anthony
THE young stars crashed on to our screens in Channel 7’s new drama 800 words in 2015 and have developed a great bond which translates on screen.
Their characters are set for some big things in the third season which has just wrapped filming in New Zealand.
Vidler was the best new talent winner at the Logies last year, so you can be sure that all eyes will be on the bubbly blonde this year.
Benson has won over fans with his quirky, friendly attitude and terrific acting skills.
I’m A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here! hosts Julia Morris and Chris Brown
After a stellar 2016 series in which Julia Morris and Chris Brown created plenty of buzz the pair head back to the jungle this month looking for even bigger things.
The reality show returns for its third season with a new bunch of A listers forced to fend for themselves in the African wilderness.
Channel 10 has been teasing out the identity of the celebrities, with Brown and Morris likely to be working with a US sitcom star and a model, among others.
FOOD
Chef Daniella Alvarez
Danielle Alvarez knows good things come to those who wait.
The Chez Panisse-trained chef’s new Paddington restaurant, Fred’s, was two years in the making, opening in October to rave reviews.
It was one of Sydney’s most anticipated new restaurants of 2016 and even during the traditionally slow holiday period, it’s a tough ask to get a table unless you want to dine at 5.30pm.
The focus on simple, seasonal ingredients has clearly won over diners.
“I like surprising people with simplicity. It’s the food I want to eat, all really approachable and a lot of it is in the details,” Alvarez says.
The luxe interior, with its open kitchen also highlights Alvarez’s girl power credentials. In defiance of the traditional male-dominated professional kitchen, Fred’s sous and pastry chefs, head sommelier and general manager are all women.
While Merivale head honcho Justin Hemmes has a tendency to move successful chefs around and have them open new venues, Alvarez says she is making herself comfortable on Oxford St.
While waiting for Fred’s to come to fruition, she worked on the openings of Coogee Pavilion and The Paddington, but says she has no plans to launch another restaurant for the hospitality juggernaut.
“I have really great ideas for this place and to achieve that it will take a lot of focus for years to come,” she says
Watch this space.
Chef Dan Hong
Instead of opting for anything as predictable as MasterChef, the Ms G’s and Mr Wong chef tested his TV chops last year with #Shelfie on ABC2.
It proved he’s as skilled in front of the camera as he is whipping up a Stoner’s Delight and we’re not the only ones who noticed.
This year he graduates to a bigger role as part of The Chefs Line, an SBS program slated to run weeknights later in the year.
An SBS spokesman says the new cooking competition explores the heritage, history and diversity of Australia’s restaurant culture.
“Leading Sydney chef Dan Hong, renowned indigenous chef Mark Olive and food writer Melissa Leong are exciting fresh faces to TV screens and each represent the diversity that drives Australian food culture, along with much-loved culinary connoisseur Maeve O’Meara in a key presenting role,” he says.
If Hong needs any pointers, he can no doubt look to Olive, who has his own series, The Outback Cafe, under his belt.
$14k a clip: NSW YouTube stars making more than you
YouTube stars in NSW are raking in thousands of dollars per video but it’s what they do in their clips that will drive traditional workers mad. Check out the rich list.
Glamming it up for a return to the racecourse
The first official racing carnival featuring the new $46.6m WINX stand at Randwick Racecourse is kicking off, with model and new mum Ksenija Lukich among those dressing up for the occasion.