This was published 3 months ago
What makes a sweet guy turn mean? How Hunter Page-Lochard found his inner villain
By Helen Pitt
Hunter Page-Lochard stars as a bad guy in Critical Incident.Credit: Louise Kennerley
Actor Hunter Page-Lochard is an unlikely villain. He’s the son of beloved former Bangarra Dance Theatre artistic director Stephen Page and New York City Ballet dancer turned Pilates instructor Cynthia Lochard.
He’s married to a Pilates instructor, Laura Thomas, and at 31 is a doting father to two young girls, Mila, 5, and Evara, 2. In May, he won an AACTA award for best supporting actor for his role as Aboriginal activist Lynus Preston in the “Bicentennial” episode of The Newsreader.
While accepting the award, he brought the house down when he thanked his “beautiful three fathers, Stephen, Russell and David” — his late uncles who co-founded Bangarra in 1991 with his dad — “for shaping me to be the man I am today”. He’s a wholesome family guy in real life who hugs and greets everyone with a killer smile. He’s even a Play School presenter, for goodness’ sake.
But boy is he convincing in the role of drug dealer Ty Egan in the new Australian police drama, Critical Incident. The contemporary psychological thriller, set in Sydney’s multicultural western suburbs, revolves around a police officer who pursues a teen on a busy train platform, and what happens to her life after this incident. It’s the brainchild of Sarah Bassiuoni, a former human rights lawyer who created this high-octane drama based on her experiences in the juvenile justice system.
Page-Lochard as drug dealer Ty in Critical Incident.Credit: Lisa Tomasetti/Stan
She met Page-Lochard’s wife in a Pilates class, and then sounded out the Indigenous/African-American actor for this role as a criminal in the middle management of western Sydney’s party drug trade. The front for the operation is a suburban bakery and his character is a baker, so Page-Lochard learnt to bake to play Ty.
“I was looking for an ominous energy and trying to play with that. It sounds so easy just to act evil. But I think there are two different types of evil. You’ve got your larger-than-life Scar character from the Lion King, your Disney villain with a kind of drag queen vibe. And then you’ve got your Heath Ledger Joker, which is a lot more nuanced and relatable, the sort of evil character you might see every day,” Page-Lochard says.
He didn’t want to play a stereotypical “gangsta-tough guy”, he adds, but instead was aiming for more of a Miami Vice-style character, “wanting the money, the power and the look. I didn’t want to act scary, I wanted to be mean”.
“I’ve never played someone so dark. I said to Sarah at the start, ‘I don’t want people to sympathise with Ty’. He’s clearly the lead character’s antagonistic force and obstacle. Playing into that was a challenge but also something I really was willing to try because as actors, we are always looking for something to do that we’ve never done before. I’m pretty upbeat and usually the life of the party, but this was not that sort of role.”
Page-Lochard in the 2016 ABC sci-fi drama, Cleverman.Credit: Lisa Tomasetti
There’s no denying Page-Lochard’s charisma both on and off stage and screen. He’s been performing since he was six months old when his father played a practical joke on a cast member of Praying Mantis Dreaming, Page’s first full-length work for Bangarra Dance Theatre.
“On the last show, Dad thought it would be a good laugh to wrap me in the same cloth as the prop baby and hand me to the actor on stage who was expecting a doll. Apparently, the actor freaked out but held his composure ... though I was told I stole the show because I raised up to touch his nose as the lights were fading and everyone in the audience gasped, ‘oh, it’s a real baby’. That was my breakthrough.”
Bangarra’s former artistic director, Stephen Page, with son Hunter Page-Lochard.Credit: Louise Kennerley
Since then, he’s had a host of roles as a young actor, from TV where he was on Water Rats at the age of five, to his feature film debut in Rachel Perkins’ award-winning Bran Nue Dae as a teen. His recent credits include the ABC drama series, Barons, the critically acclaimed Fires and the groundbreaking Indigenous sci-fi series, Cleverman.
Page-Lochard was raised in Sydney’s inner west and educated at St Mary’s Cathedral School (Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s alma mater). But he credits his father and his 11 uncles and aunts, descendants of the Nunukal people and the Munaldjali clan of the Yugambeh people of south-east Queensland, as his true teachers. It was backstage at Bangarra where a lot of his learning took place.
“I was so fortunate to grow up in the ’90s when there was such an artistic boom for blackfellas … the Aaron Pedersens, the Wayne Blairs, the Tessa Roses and aunties like Justine Saunders and Leah Purcell ... I grew up around that and was lucky enough to be given opportunities because of them.”
TAKE 7: THE ANSWERS ACCORDING TO HUNTER PAGE-LOCHARD
- Worst habit? Staying up late for no reason and watching movies that I’ve already seen a thousand times before. There’s always something new you catch.
- Greatest fear? Wind. I have a unique phobia of strong winds that can pick you up off the ground. A balloon and an umbrella on a windy day scare me senseless.
- The line that stayed with you? Talent only gets you so far, the rest is up to you.
- Biggest regret? Not learning an instrument or different language at a young age.
- Favourite book? The Skullduggery Pleasant Series by Derek Landy. It’s bloody great. R-rated Harry Potter meets True Detective with a touch of Avatar the Last Airbender ... I’m in.
- The artwork/song you wish was yours? None. Art is a shared experience. If I get to experience a great idea, I’m fortunate for that. It then inspires me to do the same.
- If you could time travel, where would you go? Pre-history, I’d chill with all my ancient ancestors learning about the cosmos and seeing how they lived. I’d come back feeling so content.
“Dancing is a big thing in the family. It’s not a big thing in my life, but movement is a big thing in the family for sure. And that’s something that I’ve taken into my craft ... how I present myself through body language. When I played Ty, for example, you’ll notice that my shoulders are hunched. Whenever I play a dark character like this, there’s something in me that tends to hunch my shoulders. I don’t know why but the point is I’m very fortunate to grow up in a movement-based family because I can incorporate that somehow into my work.”
He sees himself as a storyteller. His production company, Djali House, is now an official industry-supported production company; his first feature as director, Native Gods, is in development. His guest role in series two of The Newsreader as a ’70s DJ and Aboriginal activist was familiar territory to him.
“I knew this character. He was flamboyant. He was fly, fly, fly. That was my late uncle David [Bangarra composer] and I played it as a homage to him. And playing my uncle’s spirit got me an AACTA award. You’ve got to be grateful for that.”
After school, he studied scriptwriting at the Australian Film, TV and Radio School, then a two-week acting class at NIDA. He says working with Leah Purcell at Belvoir Street in the Brothers Wreck, taught him to act. As did Play School. “It’s like theatresports — it teaches you so much ... I’m going to freak out a lot of mums for sure in this role. Even my dad couldn’t watch Critical Incident, he found me so mean.”
His fellow Play School host, Zindzi Okenyo, is part of the cast for this show which features Akshay Khanna, known for his Hindi films, and Brisbane’s Zoe Boe in leading roles.
“There’s real diversity casting in this show. There’s not one mention about where each character comes from and that’s what I love about it. You’ve got an Indigenous actor playing a villain not because he’s Indigenous. He’s just the villain.
“Critical Incident is a shift for our country’s audiences, and it’s time for our country’s industry to really accept that. We have homegrown actors black and white who are stretching the boundaries.
“As Indigenous actors, we’ve moved away from playing the ‘stereotype’, and now we’re moving away from playing the ‘safe’ character. I think the next 10 years is going to be a very exciting time for our industry,” he says.
“I’m hoping in 2025 and 2026, there’s going to be a Hunter Page-Lochard boom. And that people will be sick of me.”
Critical Incident premieres on August 12 on Stan, owned by Nine Entertainment which owns this masthead.
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