From unknown actor to landing major roles, meet Australia’s next big star on the rise

This story is part of the March 30 edition of Sunday Life.See all 14 stories.

I’m barely five minutes into my interview with Olivia DeJonge when she pauses. “You’ve got a little something,” she says, gently reaching over to wipe crumbs from this dishevelled journalist’s face. It’s an early sign of the Australian actor’s warm and forthcoming demeanour.

It’s a Monday afternoon, and we’re at Bills in Surry Hills, the instantly recognisable institution of Sydney cafe culture. Arriving unnoticed in a black silk shirt, bare-faced, her slicked back hair in a bun, DeJonge greets me with a hug before sitting down and ordering a mint tea and a bowl of spaghetti and prawns.

Our interview coincides with the Oscars, but we couldn’t be further from the pomp and pageantry of Hollywood’s biggest night. DeJonge has taken time out of her busy schedule (she’s in the midst of her first foray into theatre, performing in a production of Picnic at Hanging Rock at the Sydney Opera House) for our chat, and hasn’t had time to tune into the awards.

It turns out Bills is a fitting location. At just 26, DeJonge’s career has taken her around the world, with starring roles as Priscilla Presley in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis and alongside Colin Firth and Toni Collette in the true crime miniseries The Staircase. She’s rubbed shoulders with Tom Hanks in Cannes and been spotted alongside Taylor Swift and Game of Thrones actor Sophie Turner at dinner. But here, nestled in the leafy streets of inner Sydney, she’s transported to an earlier time.

“I did a show up here when I was 16,” she says, referring to the neighbourhood in which she filmed one of her first screen roles, in the 2015 TV series Hiding. “But I’d never been able to revisit it properly as an adult until now.”

Dress and jewellery by Gucci.Credit: Jedd Cooney

The latest project is the new Prime Video series The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Adapted from Richard Flanagan’s novel, the story follows Dorrigo Evans (Jacob Elordi) during his time as a prisoner of war during the construction of the Burma Railway. DeJonge plays Ella, the young wife whose upper-class pedigree helps Dorrigo secure a comfortable career as a surgeon after World War II.

Traversing two timelines, we switch between a young Dorrigo, both at war and engaging in a passionate affair with his uncle’s much younger wife, and his postwar life. In the later timeline, the older Dorrigo (played by Ciarán Hinds) is hardened and haunted both by memories of love lost and the atrocities of war. Ella stands by his side throughout.

The older Ella is played by Heather Mitchell, and while DeJonge and Mitchell never got a chance to meet until the series’ world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival, DeJonge is full of praise for Mitchell’s performance. “It is so easy to play these women as helpless, without power or agency, but I think she [Mitchell], as a human being, has such vitality and strength.”

Then, of course, there’s her co-star Elordi, another young Australian whose profile has been on a meteoric rise. While this is the first project to have brought the pair together, they share a certain kinship, having both been involved in recent portrayals of The King – Elordi as Elvis Presley in Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, and DeJonge as Priscilla Presley in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis.

It’s with Elordi that DeJonge shared her favourite moment during filming for The Narrow Road to the Deep North. “All these fireworks are going off between Ella and Dorrigo on New Year’s Eve. I remember looking at Jake and watching the lights reflecting off his face. It was one of my favourite scenes, visually, in the show. It felt very otherworldly, very heightened. It was just beautiful.”

Dress by Christian Dior, rings by Bulgari.Credit: Jedd Cooney

Born in Melbourne in 1998, DeJonge moved to Perth aged five, where she spent most of her childhood. The eldest of two children, she’s not sure where her love of the arts came from, but says the passion started young. The 2003 film of Peter Pan, directed by Australian P.J. Hogan, was an early favourite.

“Every film I watched, the first thing I did after I finished it was watch all the behind-the-scenes footage,” she says. “The world-building and creating a sense of community was something I craved and was just so drawn to at a young age.”

Her parents, neither of whom work in the industry, were supportive of her acting ambitions but intent on keeping her upbringing as normal as possible. Still, it wasn’t long before DeJonge’s life began to look remarkably different to that of her classmates. After breaking into the entertainment industry at age eight, doing voiceovers in radio advertisements, DeJonge was just 12 when she picked up the gong for Best Actress in the Western Australian Screen Awards for her lead role in a short film, Good Pretender.

A series of TV and film roles followed, including the ABC series Hiding, M. Night Shyamalan’s film The Visit and the Netflix drama The Society, which maintains a fervent fan base despite being cancelled after one season.

DeJonge says starting work so young felt normal at the time but as time has passed she’s come to see that part of her life in a different light. “It was disorienting to be leaving school so much,” she says. “I’d sometimes be gone for six months of the year … it’s quite abrupt and it’s hard. When I look back, I can’t believe I was doing school and work.

Top and skirt by Zimmermann.Credit: Jedd Cooney

“It’s a universal experience with child actors, that you reflect later and don’t really know how you managed to pull it off. But it was such a gift to get such great exposure to the world, working with large groups of people and learning how to work with different types of people. Your social skills skyrocket. I don’t have any regrets.”

Despite her fame, DeJonge remains close with many of her school friends, one of whom has been staying with her in Sydney. But she admits that the differences between their lives can be stark. “When I see my friends from home, they’ve had this solid community throughout the past 10 years. It’s hard. Living out of a suitcase is quite lonely and exhausting.”

For this reason, DeJonge acknowledges that the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike was as much a blessing as a curse. By bringing the US film and television industry to a grinding halt, it allowed her to return home and buy an apartment in Melbourne, where her family had recently relocated. “I live around the corner from them, so I go over for dinner at least twice a week,” she says.

Her time in Sydney recently has been similarly routine. Between rehearsals and performances of Picnic at Hanging Rock, she’s doing Pilates, going for runs around Centennial Park and reading on her Kindle (her current picks are Margo’s Got Money Troubles and The Picture of Dorian Gray).

She’s also set her sights on writing, working on a new adaptation she’s tight-lipped about except to say it has given her a new-found appreciation for the minds behind the hundreds of scripts she’s read before.

DeJonge is diplomatic when asked to settle the great Sydney versus Melbourne debate, saying both have their perks, but it’s clear where her loyalties lie. “I’m a Perth girl at heart,” she says. “It’s a beautiful state, a beautiful place to raise a family. I had a really wonderful life there, and I miss it.”

With that, DeJonge finishes her bowl of spaghetti, thanks me with a hug and bounds out the doors of Bills, back onto the streets of Sydney where it all began.

Fashion editor: Penny McCarthy; Hair: Brad Mullins using Oribe; Make-up: Nicole Thompson using Nars at Mecca Beauty.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North will stream on Prime Video from April 18.

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