The retired chef, who turned 70 earlier this week, is set to become an unlikely movie star, already attracting high praise for his debut performance in a new film which is due to hit cinemas across Australia – and the world – in coming months.

Munro, who was born in Scotland but moved to Tasmania five years ago, plays one of the lead characters in new drama Ancestry Road, which is set in Scotland, but was filmed entirely in Tasmania.

Munro spent 17 days in Oatlands, alongside 100 other cast and crew, filming the entire production in August last year.

He got the opportunity to work with seasoned actors, plus a few newcomers, as well as with writer, director and producer Glenn Triggs – best known for films including The Comet Kids, 41, Apocalyptic and Dreams of Paper and Ink – and executive producer Mark Marshall who is known for his work on blockbuster films like The Goonies, Star Wars and Harry Potter.

The film is now finished and awaiting a cinematic release date, with those involved in filming and post-production singing the praises of Munro for his professionalism, natural acting talent. warmth and charisma.

It’s a surreal feeling for a man who had zero acting experience and only auditioned for the role because his wife saw a casting ad and suggested he try out for it.

“Saying I’m new to acting is an understatement,’’ Munro laughs.

“My wife came home and said ‘look, you should give this a go’. She’d seen an ad by (film and television talent agency) Tas Casting for a Scottish grandfather and I thought it was just for an extra, so I sent off my photograph and thought I’d never hear back from them. But a couple of days later I received a request to read a couple of lines of the script and do an audition online. So I sent it in and long story short, I got the part. Glenn (Triggs) was on the phone to me, saying he was sending me the script – I actually refused it, I said ‘I don’t want to let anyone down, I’ve never acted before’. But Glenn was very persuasive so I went and did it.’’

It was far from the minor role of an extra that Munro has first assumed it to be, but still, he decided to give it his best shot, despite his lack of acting experience.

“I was absolutely terrified,’’ he admits of his first day on set.

“I was convinced I would get sacked after the first scene but Glenn was amazing. The good thing was that Glenn allowed me to work on my own dialogue – I have my own particular way of speaking – and that made it a lot easier for me. I’d adlib a lot, I probably never gave the same line twice. The faith that Glenn showed in me, I owe it all to him – he was amazing, he was so gentle with me, he didn’t forcefully direct me, he just kind of guided me.

“I was getting a bit stressed out before it started, that I was going to let people down … they were all professionals and here’s me just popping in … but everyone was great, all the cast and crew, they all accepted me and encouraged me. There were some really great actors there, some really good professionals, so I appreciate them giving me their time and allowing me to be there with them.’’

Munro’s initial fears were unfounded, because he quickly discovered he felt quite natural in front of a camera.

“After the first scene I realised something – I kind of forgot that I was on camera,’’ he says.

“It was a great cast, so I just reacted to them as I would in real life. I was acting at being an actor. It was an education. But it was also an experience I thoroughly enjoyed.’’

He has since done the voiceover for the film, and got a buzz when he saw his name on the film’s promotional poster.

“It’s a bit surreal for me,’’ Munro says.

“I still have to pinch myself that I’ve actually done it, when I see that my name is on the poster and I’m actually in the film. I never thought it would go any further (beyond the audition). I’ve got to be 100 per cent honest, if it wasn’t for my wife Amanda I would probably have backed out, but I didn’t want to let her down because she’s so enthusiastic about it. But it was a wonderful experience.’’

Amanda is also the reason Munro ended up living in Tasmania.

Born in the north east of Scotland, he came to Australia to live in 1987.

“I was actually trying to get to New Zealand because I love mountain walking, I used to do quite a bit of long distance mountain walking,’’ Munro explains.

“I used to be a chef, and I used to work around Australia and then spend 2-3 months at a time walking the mountains in New Zealand. I love Australia and I loved travelling around and seeing different parts of it. I became a citizen as soon as I could, which in those days was five years.’’

He met Amanda on the south coast of NSW about seven years ago and they decided to move to Tasmania because she wanted to live in a cool climate.

They married two years ago and now live in New Town.

Munro has always had an interest in writing scripts and short stories and had one of his scripts turned into a play, The Bet, in Sydney in 2013 as part of the Short and Sweet short play competition. But he’s never done any acting.

After retiring, Munro enrolled at university at the age of 65 to complete his first degree, studying creative writing, modern history and majoring in ancient civilisations. He says it was quite an achievement for someone who left school – and also left home – at the age of 15.

He was set to do more study, when Ancestry Road came along.

He admits 69 was late to delve into acting but he hopes his journey inspires others to give new things a try, regardless of age or experience.

He says there’s a piece of advice he received from a stranger many years ago, which had stuck in his mind ever since, and he hopes that by sharing it he might encourage others to embrace the same mantra as they age.

“I was in a mountain hut, in the mountains in New Zealand,’’ Munro explains.

“And I actually spent a few days in this mountain hut because the pathways were blocked with flooded water. I was reading the washing instructions on my sleeping bag, I was that bored, because there was really heavy rain. Someone had written in the back of an old Reader’s Digest: ‘You’re only old when all your achievements are in the past’. It was just before my 40th birthday and someone had written that. And it was the best present I’ve ever had in my life, and I don’t even know who gave it to me.’’

And now he’s received an equally-amazing gift for his 70th birthday – getting to see the final cut of the film that he made his acting debut in.

“It’s a hell of a present for a 70th birthday,’’ Munro says.

“I’m very nervous (to see the film). But Glenn has been very complimentary. I still don’t really believe it … it’s still a little but surreal.’’

ANCESTRY ROAD’S writer and director Glenn Triggs says he instantly knew Bill Munro was the perfect person to play the role of Stephen, bringing an honest and heartfelt performance to the film.

“He was quite a marvellous find,’’ he says.

“I was looking for a gentleman in his late 60s to be in the film. I saw a lot people – worldwide – a lot of actors tried out for the role. Bill’s wife suggested he try out for it and he sent us a tape, he came highly recommend from the casting agency. And within 30 seconds (of seeing Bill in action) I knew he was the person for it. Bill initially thought it was going be a five minute (role), that maybe he’d be (on set) for half a day. But his character is in more than half the script. He was quite daunted by that but he probably gives the best performance (of anyone) in the film.’’

Based in Melbourne, Triggs wrote Ancestry Road in a flurry just before his mother died two years ago.

“I started writing Ancestry Road when my mum was quite ill,’’ Triggs explains.

“I wrote most of the script within a day. I wrote about 60 pages in a day, and that never happens, and because of that, I thought maybe this is a story worth telling.’’

Triggs, who studied film and television at the Victorian College of the Arts, wrote and directed award-winning time-travel drama 41 (released in 2012), as well as best-selling horror DVD Apocalyptic, in 2014; children’s film The Comet Kids, in 2017; and Dreams of Paper & Ink, in 2022.

He describes Ancestry Road as “very much a drama, with some supernatural themes” which explores ideas around family, and the way families are connected through generations. It’s also a story about life, and death. And many of the characters are based on members of his own family, including his mum and dad, and his grandparents.

The story is set on a Scottish farm, which is home to the McGavin family – dad Kevin, mum Anadele and children Cora and Walter. When Cora continually goes missing up the back of the property, Kevin builds a road to make life easier. But then deceased family members begin arriving in their cars for a visit, and everything changes.

Triggs says his mum’s favourite films were things like Field of Dreams, The Time Machine and “all the 60s and 70s classic movies about travelling through time, and the afterlife’’.

“I think she gave that love of films to me,’’ he says.

“She’d been ill a long time, almost half her life she had cancer on and off, it would be treated and then it came back. She passed away two years ago this month and I finished writing it after she passed away. I just felt when I was writing this script, that everything made sense. She’s in the film, and my dad (who is still alive) is in the film. It’s a nice way to bring her back to life for a little bit in the movie.’’

Triggs believes his raw grief, and the fact the characters are based on real people, helped make the film a success. Writing the script also helped him process his grief.

“I finished the script and in an awful sort of way (my grief) kind of helped the script,’’ Triggs says.

“I had far more emotions to draw from, and every time the film got difficult, I felt for Mum – whatever she went through was far worse than any stresses I was going through (while writing the script). It gave me a lot of drive to get the film finished, no day was too difficult. It was somewhere for all those emotions to go, they found a home, instead of being in my head.

“I don’t give away too many answers about where (the visitors in the film) come from, and why they are there. It’s all about ‘what if’ – ‘what if someone could come back, what would you say to them and why would they come back?’’

He knew immediately that the movie should be filmed in Tasmania, despite being set in Scotland.

“I had travelled down to Tassie four or five years ago, and I drove through Oatlands and felt at the time that it was very cinematic,’’ Triggs recalls.

“So I knew (Ancestry Road) had to be filmed in Oatlands. It kind of looks like Scotland. So I went onto Airbnb and looked for locations, I needed an old house with a hill. And I came across Bowhill Grange.’’

The historic property, only a five-minute drive from the Oatlands township, is made up of a collection of historic farm buildings, including two cottages which can be hired for short-stay accommodation.

Triggs says he “immediately fell in love with the place” and fortunately the owners, Peter and Ruth Gee, were happy to accommodate the idea of shooting a film on their property.

“Everything worked out quite quickly and easily,’’ Triggs says.

Soon he was on site, with actors and crew, filming everything in just 17 days. About 80 per cent of the movie is filmed at Bowhill Grange, while other locations included Oatlands District High School and The Book Cellar in Campbell Town.

“I wanted the landscape to be quite cinematic,’’ Triggs says.

“That’s why a big open property is where I chose to film it … it was big and vast and mysterious.’’

The film stars Seb Muirhead, Jessica Stanley, Jodie Wolf and Charlotte Gray as well as Tasmanians Anne Cordiner, Gillian Unicomb, John X, Finn Bertschi and Bill Munro, with cinematography by Benjamin Bryan and music by Tasmania’s Heath Brown.

Within three months of filming ending, the movie had been edited, and the past three months have involved all the post-production work like sound effects, music and colouring.

The grass had to be digitally enhanced to make it greener in a few shots, but Triggs says he’s shown the film to people who hail from Scotland and they said they would never have known it wasn’t actually filmed in their homeland.

Triggs says Oatlands locals were so enthusiastic about the movie – many appear in the film as extras – and others helped source props, like horses and vintage cars. And the mild weather – with only a few minutes of rain in the entire 17 days – also made life easier.

“Someone lent us a barbecue one day, and a tractor another day – a lot of the things we needed were easily accessible for us as people in the town were so helpful,’’ Triggs says.

“It was so lovely to work down there, it’s such a quiet, lovely, beautiful place, and the air is so much cleaner than Melbourne. It felt like holidays, but we were making a movie at the same time. We were not on our phones as much, we were sleeping really well and enjoying the fresh air and scenery. It was a very relaxing shoot, actually. It was such a joy … it definitely exceeded our expectations.’’

Cast and crew stayed at various places across the Southern Midlands, providing a welcome boost to the local economy.

Triggs grew up in Melbourne and started making movies in high school.

“A friend of mine got a video camera, and it sort of sparked all these crazy ideas in my head,’’ he recalls.

He spent five years working in a Blockbuster video store in his younger days, and still collects old VHS tapes.

Triggs filmed weddings and music clips and real estate videos to help hone his skills and fund his movie-making career, and for the past few years he has been solely making movies.

He has made more than 100 short films and this is his eighth feature film.

Triggs finished editing Ancestry Road a couple of weeks ago and is still making a few last-minute tweaks as he finalises discussions with film distributors, but says the film will definitely be screened in Australian cinemas in the next few months.

He’s also hoping it will screen at film festivals, and it will also appear on streaming services after that.

There will be a couple of private preview screenings for cast and crew in early April, including one at Oatlands.

Triggs says he’s pleased with the final result and is looking forward to sharing the film with the wider public. Creating a convincing Scottish storyline in the rolling hills of Tasmania was certainly a challenge, but it’s one he thinks has been a success.

“We managed to pull it off and create something very heartfelt, cinematic and honest,’’ he says. •

Ancestry Road is expected to hit Australian cinemas in the coming months. Follow Ancestry Road on Facebook for updates.