The Poppies Grow Taller in Hollywood by Ben Bonnici

For a country whose culture holds a reputation for cutting down its tallest poppies, it seems to grow an impressive number of them. Australia’s relationship with success and ‘standing out’ is famously complicated, shaped by an ambiguous yet very fine line between humility and confidence.

A few weeks ago (and after several insistent suggestions from my social media algorithms), I read the trending Substack piece by Mufaro Mutowembwa, titled Make Australia Ambitious Again. It’s one of my favourite pieces I’ve read this year, and as an Aussie who’s ventured offshore, I appreciate that despite the piece’s brutally realistic tone, it still shares my unwavering belief in Australia’s potential to grow the biggest and brightest poppies, and build fields large enough for them to stay. 

Essentially, Mutowembwa argues that many Australians aren’t leaving home because they want to escape, but because the systems around them haven’t quite caught up to the scale of their ambition. She describes the sunburnt country as ripe with talent, taste and possibility, but one where the cultural, economic and creative infrastructure hasn’t yet been built to match what ambitious people are hungry to do. So, ambition doesn’t disappear, it goes overseas.

I moved from Melbourne to New York almost four and a half years ago. In a city abundant with some of the most earnest people I’ve ever met, each day is an invitation to practice proclaiming loudly and boldly how proud I am of myself, and of my fellow Aussies’ achievements. I can’t help but wear my Aussie pride on my sleeve and shout it from the rooftops, and as someone whose passion revolves around the entertainment industry, there’s genuinely so much to celebrate. 

Indeed, this year alone has seen some of our tallest poppies continue to shoot skyward: Sarah Snook winning the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her work in The Picture of Dorian Gray (written by Aussie playwright Kip Williams); Sarah Harden wrapping up an eight-year legacy leading Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine; Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi starring in the 2026 film adaptation of Wuthering Heights; Hugh Jackman selling out consecutively at Radio City Music Hall for his show From New York With Love; Tony McNamara’s screenplay coming alive in this year’s The Roses; Joseph Zada leading the next Hunger Games instalment. But those are just the headlines. Behind them is an entire ecosystem of Australian directors, writers, actors, musicians, producers, designers, executives  and more quietly doing extraordinary work on this side of the globe. Together, they prove something I wish we applauded more often: the Aussies from Down Under are very much on top of entertainment.

You don’t have to look very far to notice it: Australians are everywhere in entertainment. Beyond the obvious giants (Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett, Chris Hemsworth, Geoffrey Rush, Naomi Watts, Eric Bana, Toni Collette, Hugh Jackman and many more), I keep running into Australians in the most unexpected corners of the industry. I meet them at events, I hear their accents across rehearsal rooms, I see the University of Melbourne or NIDA pop up on LinkedIn profiles, and every few weeks I have that same realization: there are a lot of us here.

The more time I spend working in this industry, the more convinced I am that there are two fundamental truths behind why Australians thrive in entertainment internationally.

The first is the saying “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know,” and when it comes to entertainment and media, I’d hazard a guess that most people treat that phrase like gospel. But I actually think Aussies are living proof that the full sentence is really “it’s what you know, it’s who you know, and it’s how you act.”

In a metric that can’t be measured, one of our best qualities is what I call the GBC: the Good Bloke Complex. At our core, Australians are really, really easy to work with.

It sounds almost too simple, but it’s the compliment I hear most about us. There’s a particular mix of can-do attitude, thick skin, and low-ego professionalism that tends to stand out in environments where ego can easily take over. Journalist Jon Wertheimer summed it up perfectly: Australian actors “take the work seriously [but] they don’t take themselves particularly seriously.” That distinction is paramount… and it’s probably why a lot of Aussies are working at Paramount (see what I did there).

Our culture trains us in self-deprecation from day one. It’s one of the pillars of our humour. In high school, I learned very quickly that taking yourself too seriously is the fastest way to lose the room. The upside, however, is that you accidentally build resilience; the kind you really need if you’re in the audition room, where rejection is a weekly, if not daily, occurrence.

There’s also the larrikin factor as well: even when the work is profound, we remember it’s also a bit ridiculous. A bit fun. A bit of “smoke and mirrors.” I look to Baz Luhrmann as a great example: everything he makes has that slight wink to the audience. It’s not precious. It’s not diva-ish. It’s light. Hollywood likes people who bring talent, personality and perspective. 

Moreover, I think our professional demeanour equally stems from the geographic investment of getting on a plane and moving halfway across the world. Speaking from experience, when you’ve moved that far to chase something, you don’t take any opportunity for granted. You don’t show up entitled. You show up ready. You show up grateful. As Baz Luhrmann put it, for Australians, working in Hollywood “is still romantic… it’s still a privilege. It isn’t a job. It’s a dream.”

This is why Australians get hired again and again. We bring the craft, and Australia is, as Sarah Snook said, “a great testing ground where you can fail safely.” We bring the hunger of someone who’s left everything familiar behind for a chance to build a life in this industry. Mufaro Mutowembwa claims that Australian ambition relocates rather than disappears. I’d add that when it relocates, it arrives with a work ethic sharpened by distance, risk and the decision to start over.

Now, I acknowledge with full awareness that this career isn’t easy. Australia has produced extraordinary talent, but the path itself is challenging no matter where you come from. While moving overseas can feel like starting from zero, the reality is different. Because the moment you arrive in LA or New York, you discover something every Aussie in this industry eventually learns, and my second truth: it takes a village, and luckily, ours is the size of a megacity.

As much as I’d love to romanticize the bright-eyed Aussie who steps off the plane and books Broadway or lands a studio film the next morning, that’s not how any of this works. What is true, however, is that Australians abroad don’t rise alone. The village is real, and it’s generous, and it is often the first thing that keeps you afloat.

One of the things I’ve loved most about living overseas is realising just how strong the Australian creative community is in the entertainment capitals of the world. I genuinely wish I’d understood that when I first arrived in 2021, it would have saved me a lot of unnecessary panic. Because the diaspora doesn’t just exist, it shows up.

It replies to emails.

It vouches for you. 

It answers your questions, reads your drafts, sends your resume to someone they “had a drink with once.”

I’ve gotten jobs from Aussies. I’ve given jobs to Aussies. I’ve had strangers agree to coffee because they recognized the high school I went to, and I’ve had emails returned purely because someone said, “He’s Aussie, he’s a good one.”

And yes, there are organisations that anchor this whole ecosystem. Australians in Film is the hub for Aussies working in Hollywood, offering community, as well as creative and professional development programs. The American Australian Association backs Australian talent in the U.S. through industry events, arts funding and cultural initiatives, and the Australian Theatre Festival brings our stories to New York stages.

There are many more, and I love that they all ultimately share the same goal: to create the kind of creative community and opportunities in Australia that so many of us come overseas to find. If we can build this village halfway across the world, and celebrate each other this loudly, there’s no reason we can’t build the same back home.

I’m currently one week out from my annual end-of-year trip back home. Amidst my excitement to celebrate Christmas and the New Year with my nearest and dearest, and soak myself in the kind of Aussie warmth that can carry your Vitamin D levels through to June, I’m reminded how much I have to celebrate and be inspired by. 

My friend Charly Oakley performed and was interviewed for Rolling Stone Magazine after releasing their new EP and music video, Against the Odds; a project crafted between Australia and LA, and one that confirms they’re the future of Australian music. Emanuelle Mattana saw their film Fwends dazzle film festivals across Berlin, London and Sydney; all after their original play Trophy Boys travelled from sold out audiences in Australia to the big stage in New York. Fellow NYU Tisch grad Nick Bisa is premiering his new play Nepo Baby for New York audiences, a piece he’s been developing for over a year. I’ve met so many newly arrived Aussies in New York this year alone; people who took the same risk I did, and who are already building community and momentum here.

​​Whether you’ve just wrapped a multi-million-dollar film, landed your first job at a production company, booked your first pilot, wrote your first script, recorded your first song, congratulations. I’m saying that to you, and equally to myself. 

So, let’s hear it for my fellow Aussies. You’re doing amazing, sweetie.