Generation next: Meet the breakout Aussie stars of 2022
They’re booked, busy and making serious moves in Hollywood - these are the rising Australian stars who have broken through this year. See the list.
Stellar
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With their electric performances on-screen and dynamic personalities off-screen, these five young Australian actors are part of a new generation that is gaining notice both at home and in Hollywood.
In the past year, their impressive talent, along with an unwavering advocacy for inclusivity and diversity, helped them forge a path to fame.
Stellar meets up with Michelle Lim Davidson, Josh Heuston, Asher Yasbincek, Pallavi Sharda and Thomas Weatherall, whose instincts and insights – plus an infectious camaraderie on display at our exclusive photo shoot – put them in a class of their own.
Five of Australia’s brightest rising stars are in the midst of throwing a makeshift house party.
Blaring on the speaker at Stellar’s photo shoot – where they have all gathered on a recent afternoon – is the 1990s rap song ‘Mo Money Mo Problems’ by The Notorious B.I.G.
Fittingly, its lyrics tease, Now, who’s hot, who not? Definitely hot.
Meet our Class of 2022 – a crop of up-and-coming actors who are booked and busy, having watched their profiles explode in the past 12 months.
Model and actor Josh Heuston, 26, is sitting on the floor in Prada, musing about a party he attended the night before (“It was a fun night”) that marked his return to Sydney from the set of a Hollywood project overseas.
He’s joined by Asher Yasbincek and Thomas Weatherall – his co-stars on Heartbreak High, the hit reboot of the 1990s Aussie drama – along with Pallavi Sharda (from Foxtel drama The Twelve) and Michelle Lim Davidson (of ABC TV’s The Newsreader).
They’re breaking rules – and cultural and gender stereotypes – one role at a time, signalling the same kind of “Aussie invasion” that occurred when Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett and Hugh Jackman took Hollywood by storm in the early 2000s.
Sporting a baby-blue manicure with smiley faces on his thumbs, Heuston reflects on the impact of his breakout role as bad boy Dusty on Heartbreak High, a runaway hit that was streamed the equivalent of 18.25 million hours in a week when it premiered across the world on Netflix in September.
“It has been a pretty huge year,” Heuston tells Stellar. “I didn’t think I’d be sitting here, doing interviews like this, or any of it, really. I still have severe imposter syndrome.”
For Yasbincek, 21, it’s been an equally life-changing time playing troubled teen Harper on the show.
“When I got the job, I was working in traffic control in Perth,” she says. “My life is very different – it completely flipped the switch. It’s insane.”
Weatherall, meanwhile, says he knew his portrayal of sensitive Bundjalung jock Malakai had made an impact when the 22-year-old’s Instagram followers surged from a few thousand to nearly 150,000 essentially overnight after the series debuted.
“People start stopping you on the street, and you get direct messages,” Weatherall says of his sudden fame. “That’s when it kind of kicks in.”
Wearing a pair of over-the-knee boots, Sharda, 30, perches atop a leather chair and jokes, “This is how short I am – I need four cushions.”
The Indian-Australian star relocated from Melbourne to India for a career in Bollywood at a time when there weren’t parts in Australia for her. Earlier this year, she returned home to film a key role as jury foreperson Corrie in The Twelve.
“That I was even able to conceive of myself on-screen was a seismic shift,” Sharda tells Stellar. “And it’s only happened in the past five years that we’re seeing nuances on-screen for people of colour – not just these monoliths and stereotypes.”
Davidson, 35, was a fan favourite as Noelene in the award-winning drama The Newsreader (which is returning for a second series in 2023).
And, in the Nine Network’s courtroom drama After The Verdict, she impressed as a young mother called for jury duty.
“When I first started acting, I didn’t think something like that would be possible – it just didn’t even cross my mind that I might lead a television show one day,” the Korean-Australian actor says.
“It’s tempting to [downplay it and think], OK, what’s my next thing? Or, it wasn’t an international thing,” she continues.
“But I’ve realised this year that I’ve done enough. I’ve done more than I could have wished. And so, from now on, everything’s a bonus.”
ASHER YASBINCEK
Who: Born in Perth, Yasbincek, 21 years old, is now based in Melbourne.
Claim to fame: Her breakout role as Harper McLean in Heartbreak High features the character’s trend-setting shaved head.
“A lot of people don’t think it was my real hair, but it was,” Yasbincek tells Stellar. “I completely changed my physical appearance [for the role].”
The show has also changed her career trajectory. “We had hoped it would be received well, but I don’t think anyone knew what that would look like,” she says of Heartbreak High’s success.
“It’s kind of a hard thing to wrap your head around. I felt like I was living the dream. Every day, I was like, ‘I don’t understand how this happened?’”
What’s next: While also auditioning for other projects, Yasbincek will shoot the second season of Heartbreak High in 2023.
Of her character Harper, the daughter of an addict and the victim of sexual assault, Yasbincek says, “A lot of people don’t like her because of her explosiveness. Everything she does is coming from pain. It’s f*cked up.
“She flips out and punches her best friend. Harper’s reaction [to trauma] is not what people are used to seeing female characters do.”
PALLAVI SHARDA
Who: Perth-born, 30-year-old Sharda was raised in Melbourne and splits her time between Australia and India.
Claim to fame: Although her roles this year in the Foxtel drama The Twelve – as emotionally conflicted juror Corrie – and in the Netflix rom-com Wedding Season – as Asha, a woman pressured to find love by her parents – put her on the radar with Aussie audiences, Sharda has been a big name in Bollywood since 2010.
Of her international success, Sharda says, “For my entire career, here and in India and in America, I’ve had to walk a path that hasn’t been walked before.”
What’s next: Although she does not rule out a return to making films in India, Sharda says, “It’s really a key goal of mine to continue to work in Australia and just keep pushing the envelope when it comes to representing different cultures on-screen.
Being able to do that in The Twelve was a big part of that overarching project. And similarly, Wedding Season allowed me to give voice to a diasporic woman and share the experience of so many people that I know in my life.
I knew that I was creating something that was truly representative when I was playing Asha and the response has been overwhelming.”
JOSH HEUSTON
Who: Born in Sydney, Heuston, 26, still calls the Harbour City home.
Claim to fame: The model (he has worked with Hugo Boss, Tommy Hilfiger and GQ Australia) and Instagram star (he has nearly 700,000 followers) started the move into acting about four years ago by taking acting classes.
Heuston soon landed a role in the miniseries Bali 2002 and a cameo in Marvel’s Thor: Love And Thunder, before being cast in Heartbreak High. “I went to [acting] classes and I was really, really sh*t… not that I’m good now,” he jokes.
“There were years of me doing classes to get good enough to then walk through the doors that modelling opened. In acting, you have to earn your stripes.”
His latest role as Dusty Reid in Heartbreak High – “he’s the cool kid in school but he has his own insecurities,” Heuston says – has already catapulted his career to the next level.
Given the show’s success here and overseas, Heuston is aware that as his fame grows, his life will change.
“I can still go out and stuff; I’m not like Harry Styles or something,” he assures. “People are usually pretty nice. It’s still very chill.”
What’s next: Sporting a tattoo on his arm that says “always lucky”, Heuston says he is eyeing a career in Hollywood.
“I just want to take roles that interest me. I’ve been fortunate to try a bunch of things and I think that, now, it’s important to make sure I do the right [roles]. If the script feels good, then I’d be happy to do anything.”
MICHELLE LIM DAVIDSON
Who: Korean-born and Newcastle-raised, Davidson, 35, is now based in Sydney.
Claim to fame: Davidson has featured on Play School, Top Of The Lake: China Girl, Utopia and Doctor Doctor. But this year, her roles as broadcast news researcher Noelene in the 1980s-set ABC drama The Newsreader and as stressed-out juror Clara in the Nine Network series After The Verdict got people talking.
And if that chatter consisted equally of praise and representation, Davidson considers it progress.
“I think we’re seeing a lot of cultural change, but there’s still a bit of a speed bump for me when people see my race first,” she says.
“I can become a better actor, but I can’t change the way I look and I can’t change my ethnicity. At the same time, I don’t want people to say, ‘Oh, I don’t see your race’, because if you don’t see my race, then you don’t see me.”
What’s next: Having wrapped production on the second season of The Newsreader, Davidson is now keen to explore her love of scriptwriting. “I guess it’s a natural progression of my career,” she says.
Her first play, Where We Love Is Home (loosely based on her experiences as a Korean adoptee), has been picked up for development by the renowned Sydney Theatre Company.
THOMAS WEATHERALL
Who: The Rockhampton-born and Gold Coast-raised Weatherall, 22, now calls Sydney home.
Claim to fame: After roles in the Australian dramas Troppo and RFDS, the Kamilaroi writer and actor has garnered attention for playing Malakai Mitchell, a Heartbreak High student
on the receiving end of racially-fuelled police violence.
“It was important for me to come into it not with the lens of: you’re this First Nations character and you’ve got a lot of weight on your shoulders,” explains Weatherall.
“We’re not just concerned with the fact that he’s First Nations. [This series] is a real representation of Australia – it’s not all blonde people with blue eyes surfing. This is a multicultural country, and this is a genuine experience for its Indigenous people.”
What’s next: Aside from shooting another season of Heartbreak High next year, Weatherall will star in his own play, Blue, at Sydney’s Belvoir St Theatre as part of January’s Sydney Festival.
“I started writing it years ago,” he says. “It’s a one-man show about a man who comes to terms with grief and love and identity.”
As for adjusting to his new celebrity status, Weatherall laughs, “I was getting hundreds of DMs from around the world.
“I was a dancer growing up and... I fell into acting by chance. When [Heartbreak High’s success] happened like it did, it took me by surprise.”
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