A few moments before discovering he was the winner of the 2022 Heath Ledger Scholarship, actor Rahel Romahn spoke candidly about his difficult journey, from a childhood in war-torn Kurdistan to a career in Australian television and film.
It was one, he said, which often left him feeling lonely, unworthy and depressed. “I have been a nominee in the past for a few awards,” Romahn, 28, said. “I have never been a winner.”
But in a happy twist worthy of a road-to-Hollywood story, Romahn emerged victorious from a field of more than 600 candidates to win the coveted scholarship, named after acclaimed Australian actor Heath Ledger, whose career was defined by films including Brokeback Mountain and The Dark Knight, and whose life ended in 2008.
Actor Rahel Romahn won the 2022 Heath Ledger Scholarship. Credit: Janie Barrett
His name, Romahn said, was “the last name that I would have thought of, of the six [finalists].”
In his acceptance speech, Romahn thanked Australia’s Indigenous community for the preservation of Australia through its long history, and for creating a “safe haven for myself, my family and countless other refugees.”
Born in Kurdistan, in Northern Iraq, at the height of Saddam Hussein’s genocidal rule, Romahn and his family came to Australia when he was a young boy. But growing up in western Sydney, as an outsider, Romahn said he struggled as a victim of bullying.
Rahel Romahn on the set of Here Out West.Credit: Wolter Peeters
“I was bullied, I was ostracised. I could not fit in, I was the odd one out wherever I went. I felt that, and it was painful,” Romahn said. At the age of 12, with a dad who was not familiar with video “ratings”, Romahn hid a video copy of Brian de Palma’s iconic film Scarface, starring Al Pacino, at the bottom of a pile of rented videos.
“Al Pacino’s performance in that, the craft of it, the explosivity, his ability not to feel shut in … he was not the tallest guy, was not the Hollywood look, but there was something about him, he was an enigma,” Romahn told this masthead. “It really spoke to me and I thought, I want to be able to express myself like this guy.”
A radio advertisement for a local drama school led Romahn to the stage, and then to the screen. A small role in Underbelly in 2010 led to SBS drama The Principal, for which he was nominated for an AACTA award and a TV Week Logie award. More recently he has appeared in Mr Inbetween and the miniseries Australian Gangster.
“I knew that all the work I put in would come back, even at that age,” Romahn said. “I would sit in my room for hours every day doing accents and faces. I found something I was good at that people appreciated me for,” Romahn says.
Rahel Romahn in The Principal.Credit: Tony Mott
It was a weird time to be growing up in Australia, he says, “with the Cronulla riots, and 9/11, all this terrible shit going on. But still be able to be a positive example. That a refugee came here, and appreciated it, and did something special with the unique opportunity of [coming to] in a beautiful country where anything is possible.”
The prospect of moving to Los Angeles excites Romahn. “It’s the nucleus,” he says. “If the Australian and British film industries are branches of a tree, then Hollywood, Los Angeles, is where the roots are. Being in Hollywood means being in the nucleus. Being with the people that love it and where the most opportunities are.”
More than 600 applications were submitted for the scholarship this year. A panel of US and Australian casting directors then culled those applications to six finalists, which were then assessed by the scholarship jury: actors Chris Hemsworth and Jacki Weaver, director Rachel Perkins, Game of Thrones, Rome and Star Wars casting director Nina Gold and Arrested Development and Being The Ricardos star Alia Shawkat.
The scholarship package includes a US$10,000 cash prize, flights to the US, private acting tuition, speech training, immigration services, a headshot photography package, a lifetime membership to the industry body Australians in Film and access to the organisation’s LA headquarters on the Raleigh Studios film lot in Los Angeles.
Heath Ledger in 2003.Credit: Sandy Scheltema
“There can only be one winner, and we are proud and excited to award Rahel with the scholarship,” Weaver said. “He embodies the qualities of excellence in acting combined with the passion and dedication to excel on the world stage. I wish him every success and can’t wait to work with him.”
The scholarship was created five months after Ledger’s death in 2008; previous recipients include Bella Heathcote (Strange Angel), Cody Fearn (American Crime Story: Versace, House of Cards), Mojean Aria (Dead Lucky, See) and Charmaine Bingwa (The Good Fight).
Speaking on the scholarship webcast, former recipient Ashleigh Cummings said it represented a major turning point in her career. “I had not really tried to transition to the US prior [to winning] and it gave me a really firm footing to step onto the ground here,” Cummings says.
“It’s a huge jump, geographically, but emotionally it’s also a big new world out there,” Cummings added. “There were tangible elements, the prizes, which were fantastic, but there were also the quiet phantoms that accompanied them, the community, the connection with [Australians in Film] and the words [Heath’s father] Kim Ledger gave me.”
Cummings says she still keeps Kim Ledger’s handwritten note close at hand. “I keep his words in a pocket, they’re very valuable to me,” she says.
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