Heath Ledger Scholarship winner for 2025 announced
For more than a decade, the Scholarship has supported an Australian actor during their breakout moment. Vogue Australia meets this year’s group of finalists and the winner, Andrea Solonge, as they prepare for their close-ups.
On a sunny afternoon, as most afternoons in Los Angeles are, the view from the rooftop terrace of The London Hotel is a straight line right down the barrel of the Sunset Strip. This area of West Hollywood is littered with movie billboards and showbiz landmarks. If Los Angeles is a city of dreams for aspiring actors, then those dreams all
begin here. An apt location, then, for a photo shoot celebrating the six rising star finalists for the coveted Heath Ledger Scholarship in October.
Andrea Solonge was one of the Australian actors gathered on the rooftop that afternoon. “I remember being incredibly excited,” she says, the following day, on the phone from her hotel room. “Shooting for Vogue – for me, that’s a real dream come true.” Excited yes, but also a bundle of nerves. “I was rushing around a little bit,” she admits. “I was thinking, ‘Okay, do I have my speech? Do I have my dress? Oh my god, how am I gonna do this?’” She did it by slipping into an iridescent Self-Portrait gown and posing for Vogue’s photographer. A few hours later, at the award ceremony held at Soho House, she was named the 12th recipient of the Heath Ledger Scholarship in front of an audience of Australian screen luminaries including director Unjoo Moon and actors Sean Keenan, Pallavi Sharda and Sam Rechner.
“Everywhere you look, there were these amazing people who you just wanted to connect with,” Solonge shares. When the night was over, the finalists returned to their hotel and “all got changed into our trackies” for a couple of drinks and some hot chips downstairs at the bar. The perfect end to a whirlwind evening.
Established in 2012 by Ledger’s family, in partnership with Australians in Film, the scholarship offers a prize worth $90,000 to support an emerging talent as they stake their claim in the industry. In 2024, six finalists were selected from a record-breaking pool of entrants and put before a judging panel that included actors Sarah Snook – herself a finalist for the scholarship in 2011 before Succession turned her into a household name – Melanie Lynskey and Simone Kessell, both New Zealand-born performers and now co-stars in the cult series Yellowjackets.
Solonge, 28, applied for the scholarship after a huge year on the small screen, with roles in Stan’s dark megachurch drama Prosper, alongside Richard Roxburgh and Rebecca Gibney – “it was like a masterclass” – and in Taika Waititi’s Time Bandits on AppleTV+, a riotous comedy that zips through history’s wildest true stories. “You know how Taika’s mind works,” she laughs. “It was crazy and silly and goofy and full of jokes.” Her fellow finalists were Charles Wu, the Harrow star fresh from his acclaimed turn in Sydney Theatre Company’s Golden Blood, and Taj Aldeeb, an actor who balances appearing on television in series including Four Years Later with performing in the Melbourne Youth Orchestra.
Ezekiel Simat, a former Heath Ledger Scholarship finalist from 2018, has made a name for himself on the small screen in The Artful Dodger and the Liane Moriarty adaptation Apples Never Fall. Finally, two Heartbreak High breakouts completed the pool: Will McDonald, who starred as the loveable eshay Ca$h, and will lead The Talented Mr Ripley at the Sydney Theatre Company this year, and Kartanya Maynard, a scene-stealing comedic talent, as seen in Deadloch and Gold Diggers.
Judging was fiercely close and went down to the wire. “It was a tough decision, as all the finalists were brilliant,” says Snook, “but one stood out with a captivating depth and strength.” Speaking to Vogue from the ceremony, Lynskey praised Solonge’s innate talent. “She has a presence about her that you just know she is somebody special,” she enthused. “And then her work was very, very rich.” Lynskey remembers watching a scene of sparky dialogue between Solonge and her co-star Lisa Kudrow in Time Bandits and thinking, this person is ready. “It felt like she was right on the verge and this is the little push that she needs to get her to where she needs to be,” Lynskey continued. “Which is superstardom.”
Solonge grew up in the Sydney suburb of Sans Souci, raised by a single mother who fled war in the Congo. “My love for acting started really young,” she says. “My mum used to work a lot, and sometimes we’d have a babysitter, so we just bought all of these VHS tapes and every day I’d tug at her ankle for a new one.” As a child, she estimates she watched Peter Pan 50 times. “I feel like that instilled this sense of play and really nurtured my childlike imagination,” she reflects. “I think that always stayed with me.” In an emotional speech, Solonge dedicated the scholarship to her mum, and all the sacrifices she endured to support her dream. “She’s so bad with technology,” the actor laughs.
“I messaged her a few times as I was being pulled around the room. ‘Mum! Scholarship! Won! Heart eye emoji!’ No reply. Two hours later: ‘Mum! Where are you?’ She finally gave me a call. I could hear her jumping around the room and being happy, which was incredibly special.”
The scholarship’s prize pack, courtesy of Australians in Film, includes a year’s mentorship with Bella Heathcote, herself a former winner. As the 12th recipient, Solonge joins an exclusive club that also includes Charmaine Bingwa, who went on to lead television’s The Good Fight, and Rahel Romahn, who balances screen work with commanding appearances on stage in productions including 2023’s Amadeus. Solonge remembers hearing the news of Bingwa’s win in 2018. “The first woman of colour, and not only that, the first openly gay woman of colour to win the scholarship,” Solonge reflects. “I was still in acting school. I didn’t know her. I remember crying and being so proud and just feeling that something like this is possible for someone that looks like me.”
In part, the scholarship is a testament to Ledger’s capacity to lend a hand to fellow Australians seeking purchase in Hollywood. Famous for offering up his couch to travelling hopefuls – whether he was in residence or not – the late actor believed in creating a community of Australians in film. Solonge has already been on the receiving end of such support. Anna McGahan, a previous winner, opened her doors to Solonge when she was between apartments in drama school, and as a student she connected with Bingwa, who “would always give advice and watch my tapes and give feedback”. Now, says Solonge, who will next be seen alongside Leighton Meester in Stan’s comedy caper Good Cop/Bad Cop, she is excited to pay it forward. “Receiving that generosity from past recipients, it’s so full circle,” she says. “It inspires me to do the same.”
Solonge remembers watching Ledger in Ang Lee’s romantic drama Brokeback Mountain when she was 17, a film that is moulded around the intensity of the then-25-year-old Ledger’s coiled silences and mumbled anguish. “I called a friend and said, ‘I can’t believe I have waited so long to watch this,’” Solonge says. Throughout the process of applying for the scholarship, she has been able to speak to many people who knew and loved Ledger. The biggest takeaway is not merely the force of his talent, but of his ambition, too. “Nothing was handed to him,” muses Solonge. “He was just so hungry for this career and so curious that he would do whatever it took to create a character.” She is holding that reminder close.
“[It’s] something that can tend to get lost is the love of the work,” Solonge explains. “You get so many knockbacks, and you see other people around you rising to the top, and you think, ‘If I just get this one big thing, then everything will change.’ But this work is about the work … You truly have to love it.” Luckily, Solonge does.
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