Australian actor Zoe Terakes steps into the Marvel universe

Roles in key Australian productions helped the actor along the path to embracing their gender identity.

Zoe Terakes. Picture: Nic Walker

Zoe Terakes first walked onto a television set at just 16 years of age. The then Year 11 student had no experience whatsoever and went from their school classroom to playing a homeless teenager in the ABC’s legal drama Janet King, acting opposite the critically acclaimed Marta Dusseldorp.

“I kept looking down the barrel of the camera and everyone was saying, mate, come on, you can’t keep looking down the lens,” Terakes tells WISH, laughing. “I knew absolutely nothing and everyone was very gracious with me anyway. I was just a baby. But the moment I was on set, I felt immediately like this is exactly what want to do. It was such a beautiful feeling, the wonder, the full-body sensation of realising, oh my god, I hope I get to do this for the rest of my life.”

Terakes immediately made an impression and was dubbed the next rising star. Six years later, the actor has been on stage, scoring a Helpmann award nomination for Arthur Miller’s A View From The Bridge, played a prisoner on Wentworth, starred alongside Nicole Kidman and Melissa McCarthy in Nine Perfect Strangers and just scored a role in Marvel’s new series Ironheart.

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But what makes Terakes’ career even more extraordinary is that it is inexorably intertwined with a personal discovery of sexuality, gender and identity. Terakes is a gay non-binary trans masculine (who uses they/them pronouns), and being on set for their youth meant their own personal journey was not only reflected back at them in their work – through the different characters they played – but it was all very public, both on set with colleagues and with the viewing community.

“It was a bit much sometimes because my character in Wentworth, Reb [a trans masculine] went through some pretty horrible things. That was a lot as someone who had just come to terms with being trans myself,” Terakes says. “But at the same time I am so grateful because I had to cut my hair for that role and do all these things that sped up the realisation of how I wanted to present. I was already presenting very masculine but it meant that I got to present as a boy every day, which was great because I am a boy every day. I hadn’t been about to do that at work. I had always been a boy playing a girl and sometimes I felt like I was in drag, especially when I was in A View From The Bridge, putting on make-up every night. So to not be a woman in the world was very cool.”

Terakes is chatting to WISH at a café on Sydney’s Oxford Street. The actor had not long wrapped from filming their new Marvel series in Atlanta and had just returned home. They were just about to undergo top surgery. It was announced in August 2022 – via a report in the Hollywood bible Deadline – that Terakes had officially hit the big time, scoring what was described only as a “key” role in Ironheart.

For anyone unfamiliar with the comic book superhero empire, Marvel is a television and film juggernaut that has made $US25 billion from movies such as Spiderman, Iron Man, Thor, Black Widow and Black Panther and features some very famous actors, from Liam Hemsworth to Robert Downey Jnr and Scarlett Johannsen.

Actor Zoe Terakes. Picture: Nic Walker

Since kicking off with Iron Man in 2010, Marvel (owned by Disney since 2009) has used its global platform to tell more diverse and inclusive stories. Black Panther in 2018 was the first movie ever made with a black superhero and a mainly black cast, selling $US1.3 billion worth of tickets and winning a slew of awards. Black Widow was about female superhero Johannsen and was directed by a woman. Tom Hiddleston’s character Loki is bisexual and the Disney+ show Ms. Marvel is about a Muslim teenage-girl superhero and is set in a Pakistani American community in New Jersey.

The six-part series Ironheart will star black actress Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams, a student genius and inventor of the most advanced suit of armour since the one worn by Downey Jnr in the Iron Man movies. Terakes is joined by RuPaul’s Drag Race star Shea Coulee and Hamilton star Anthony Ramos. The series will reportedly be aired at the end of the year on Disney+.

The power of being on such a big franchise that will be seen by so many people around the world is not lost on Terakes, who is a vocal activist on trans rights. Taking to Instagram when the Deadline report went out in August, they stated: “This one’s for the trans guys n girls n theys…so much love.”

“It is a pretty good feeling,” the actor says of joining Marvel. “The show is going to be amazing, and it is so black and brown and it is so queer. What we kept saying to each other [during the filming] was if we had this when we were growing up things would be really different. I didn’t see a trans person on television until about three years ago; it just didn’t happen. If it did, it was hey, yuck, look at this yucky person.

“But there is so much power in seeing yourself on screen, especially when you are a kid. Groups that have been so disempowered and disenfranchised are now the superhero and saving the day. It shouldn’t take that to be respected, but it helps a lot. I think Black Panther was the best Marvel movie ever made.”

Terakes says they knew were gay by age 12 and would “chuck sickies” from school to watch queer movies. There just weren’t that many. “I think the thing you want so badly when you are growing up is to feel seen,” the 22 year old says. “It is really hard for trans kids because there is not really much out there where you go OMG, I am real, I exist. It is very hard to know you exist if you can’t see yourself anywhere.”

The actor was in their last few years of school and feeling like “something was up” but they could not figure out what it was until they met actor Morgan Davies on the set of Foxtel’s drama The End in 2018. “I didn’t know any trans people or a single non-binary person, and then I did a job called The End and met my friend Morgan. They were the first trans person I had met,” Terakes recalls. “I was like, whoa, all the people on set were referring to him as a guy and treating him like a guy and I didn’t even think that was possible. I thought you couldn’t be an actor and live a life that was true to you until I saw Morgan.

“From that day onwards I realised this is what I want. When you are trans, you do all the things you think are really normal, but they are not. I remember being in France with my friend and she asked me once why I always wore a sports bra, sometimes even two, instead of a bra. But after that day on set and seeing Morgan, it all just fell into place and everything started to add up a bit more.”

If a different gender identity was one of the key parts of Terakes’ youth, even when they didn’t know it, the other was acting. As an only child, they spent many years playing make-believe games with their parents and grandparents. Whether it was Simba from The Lion King or Prince Eric from The Little Mermaid (Terakes was never Ariel), Terakes was always very into properly playing their character for hours at a time (perhaps, they admit, laughing, way more than anyone else on the playground during their first year of school).

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“I always loved it but I felt a bit embarrassed to say that I wanted to be an actor because I didn’t look like any actors I knew.”

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“You get to commit to this other world that is so fun,” they say of their childhood games. “And that is exactly what acting is, just with a few more added layers and complications. I always loved it but I felt a bit embarrassed to say that I wanted to be an actor because I didn’t look like any actors I knew.

“I have always been bigger and a bit blokey and gay and Greek, and 10 years ago any of those things meant you weren’t going to have a career in Australia. So I decided to say I wanted to be a director instead, even though I didn’t really know what that meant. My dad took me to an open day for a directing course at university when I was in Year 11 and I thought, no way, this looks too hard.”

Their brief flirtation with directing over, Terakes did acting classes at school in Sydney and was introduced to an agent via their teacher. The teenager had no headshots, no prior jobs, nothing – just a video of a monologue they did in class. Terakes thought the agent would go for a walk and have a chat about what would happen if it was actually a real agent meeting. Instead, the agent sent them to their first audition, to play a homeless teenager called Pearl Perati in Janet King opposite Dusseldorp.

“Three weeks later I got a call back and I was like ‘what the hell?’ and my agent was also like ‘what the hell?’ because I was so nervous, I had messed up my lines and I thought I had stuffed it up,” Terakes recalls. “Then I went slightly crazy waiting because I didn’t think I would get anywhere in acting – it seems like this big abyss – but then you get one bite and you hold on so tight. And I ended up getting it.”

Terakes made friends with Dusseldorp and other members of the cast, and they are still friends today. The actor later worked again with her on the stage in Melbourne Theatre Company’s A Dollhouse Part 2 in 2018. “I had never had the feeling before Janet King of time flying by,” they explain of their first experience of acting. “I would walk on set at 6am and I think it would be 11am and it was 4pm and I just thought it was going too fast. So I would get there early because I just wanted to talk to everyone.”

The Sydneysider also learnt quickly the satisfaction of cracking a scene with another actor, especially someone like Dusseldorp. “I remember one day Marta and I had to do a really big scene and I never had to cry before on camera and I was freaking out because I thought I couldn’t do it,” Terakes says. “But Marta was just so wonderful to play off that I looked at her and started crying. When you nail a scene, you really feel like you are in a bubble with that person and you have really connected with them.”

The then 17 year old went on to do A View from A Bridge on stage in Sydney – completing their HSC at school during the day and then treading the boards at night – before hitting up the producers of the Foxtel Prisoner reboot Wentworth for a trans masculine character. They were successful and Terakes scored the role of Reb Keane, who was imprisoned after robbing a bank with his girlfriend Lou Kelly.

“Even when I was more femme presenting, I have never been able to play the girl next door, so Wentworth just felt like the only place for me in the Aussie television world,” they recall. “This is a show where it is not just shiny ladies, not just women in a box. I remember talking to [actor] Susie Porter about how no one at Wentworth is just a wife, just a daughter, just a mother. That is the least of anyone here.”

Terakes booked their first international job – with Marvel no less – in 2022 and spent months in the US, filming in Atlanta and Chicago. The actor was equally shocked when they heard the news about getting the part (Terakes is not allowed to divulge any details) in Ironheart as they were when they scored their very first gig in Janet King. After doing the audition via Zoom, “I didn’t hear anything for a month and it was hell,” Terakes recalls. “Then I got a phone call at 5am, saying congratulations, you are entering the Marvel cinematic universe. And I was like WTF?! The whole thing has been life changing.

“It was so interesting walking into a big studio on the first day. I had never seen a studio before as I had never shot in a studio before. So driving onto the lot, I was thinking WOW! I am in Hollywood! This is crazy! That was a real pinch-me moment. There were so many of those moments, where I was like wow, this is Marvel, but there were moments where this just felt like it was any other job.”

Terakes says they felt very supported on set – all their castmates, crew and producers went out of their way to use correct pronouns – and was quite calm during the filming of the show. “It didn’t feel scary,” the actor recalls. “I think I felt well cast. I felt like I could do this and that was a very nice feeling to have.”

As for the future beyond next year’s Ironheart release and whatever that may bring, Terakes is keen getting back on stage again somewhere around the world and doing a movie with great dialogue, maybe even a love story. But whatever it is, they want to make a difference, to be that person who is viewed on screen by the next kid who may be trying to figure out their identity and sexuality.

“I just want to be able to turn on the TV, with my parents sitting next to me, and feel like, oh wow, that person looks like me or that is what I want to look like,” the 22-year-old explains. “Or I just see a movie where a person has a girlfriend and has a really nice life, or that person is a superhero. Any or all of those things, where you just get to see yourself thriving. We need to make it clear that the way we live and exist is also a good, right, healthy, beautiful thing. I think that is slowly, slowly happening.”

This story appeared in The Pride Issue of WISH, which celebrates the game-changers who are shaping Australia into a more diverse and inclusive society.