Wayne Blair (director)

Wayne Blair
File:Wayne Blair.jpg
Born	(1971-11-28) 28 November 1971 Taree, New South Wales, Australia
Alma mater	CQ University
Occupation	Television and film director, writer, actor
Website	wayneblair.com

Wayne Blair (born 28 November 1971) is an Australian writer, actor and director. He was on both sides of the camera in Redfern Now. He is also the director of the feature film The Sapphires.

Early life

Blair was born in Taree, New South Wales, to Julie and Bob Blair and has two older sisters, Janet and Mandy. He is an Aboriginal Australian and he describes himself as a Batjala, Mununjali, Wakkawakka man.

As Blair's father was a soldier the family moved around. While Blair was still young, his father was posted to Woodside in South Australia. When he was a teenager, Blair's family were sent to Rockhampton. In Rockhampton he excelled at cricket and rugby, then later became interested in acting and dancing at school. Blair had a job as a tour guide at Rockhampton's Dreamtime Cultural Centre, where he was also one of the dancers. He went on to do a marketing degree at Central Queensland University, though his elective subjects included comic drama and Australian drama. He briefly went to Sydney to play rugby league for the Canterbury Bulldogs under-21s. After a failed audition for NIDA in 1992, he eventually did a three-year course at the Queensland University of Technology in acting.

Career highlights

Blair's first recorded on-screen appearance was in a 1997 Australian TV film called The Tower. The following year he appeared on All Saints and Wildside. He has also appeared in Water Rats and Fireflies. 1998 was also the year he was one of the first four film makers to be mentored under the Metro Screen Indigenous Mentor Scheme for which he made a short film called Fade 2 Black. Ten years later he was to become a mentor himself under the same scheme.

Blair starred in the original stage production of Tony Briggs's play, The Sapphires in 2005. This play was later turned into a filmscript to be directed by Blair.

In 2007 he starred as Othello for Bell Shakespeare, a show that toured Australia with stops at Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra as well as other cities. He also directed three episodes of Lockie Leonard with a further four in 2010.

In 2008 Blair directed all thirteen episodes of the Australian children's TV series Double Trouble, about twin Indigenous girls separated at birth. In 2009 he wrote an episode of the second season of The Circuit. 2010 saw Blair direct four episodes of the Australian-British children's supernatural comedy TV series, Dead Gorgeous. He directed British-Jamaican Debbie Tucker Green's play Dirty Butterfly and co-directed the biographical play, Namatjira, with Scott Rankin who also wrote the play, both plays at Sydney's Belvoir St Theatre. He was also chosen in the same year as one of the stars of the Sydney Theatre Company's revival of Sam Shepard's True West, directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Wayne Blair was awarded the Bob Maza Fellowship for 2011 by Screen Australia to provide opportunities for career development. 2012 was a big year which saw the making of his hit film, The Sapphires, which brought him recognition around the world with a very positive response at Cannes. Later in the year he starred in three episodes of the ABC's TV drama series, Redfern Now and directed another of the episodes. To finish the year Blair was included in Variety Magazine's top ten directors to watch in 2013.

Blair has occasionally worked on projects outside of Australia, including 2015's Septembers of Shiraz; a US production shot in Bulgaria, and a 2017 made for television remake of the American classic Dirty Dancing.

Filmography

Films

Year	Title	Credit	Role	Notes
2020	Firestarter: The Story of Bangarra	Director
2020	Rams		Lionel
2019	Top End Wedding	Director
2018	Emu Runner		Jay Jay
2015	Septembers of Shiraz	Director
	Nulla Nulla		Black Cop	Short film
2013	Notes		Thanks	Short film
	The Turning		Max
2012	The Sapphires	Director
	Wish You Were Here		Willis
2011	X: Night of Vengeance		Bob
	The Last Time I Saw Michael Gregg
2009	Blessed		James Parker
	Ralph	Writer		Short film
2005	The Djarn Djarns	Director and Writer	Wayne the Compare
2002	Black Talk	Director
2001	Mullet		James

Television

Year	Title	Credit	Role	Notes
2021	Aftertaste		Brett	ABC Series
2020	Mystery Road – Series 2, Season 2, 3, 4	Director		ABC Series
2018	Mystery Road – Series 1		Larry Dime	ABC Series
2017	The Letdown		Father Whyman	ABC Series
Dirty Dancing	Director		Television film
2013	The Broken Shore		Bobby Walshe	TV Movie
	The Elegant Gentleman's Guide to Knife Fighting	Director		3 episodes
	The Gods of Wheat Street			Mini-series 2 episodes
2012–2013	Redfern Now	Director and Writer	Aaron Davis	Directed 2 episodes Wrote 1 episode Acted in 5 episodes
2010	Dead Gorgeous	Director		4 episodes
2009	The Circuit	Writer		Mini-series 1 episode
2008	Double Trouble	Director		13 episodes
2007–2010	Lockie Leonard	Director and Writer		Directed 8 episodes Wrote 1 episode
2007	Jackie Jackie		Koori Salesman	TV Movie
2006	Small Claims: The Reunion		Det. Lacey
2004	Small Claims		Det. Snr. Const. Lacey
	Fireflies		Wayne Patterson	Season 1, Episode 5
2000	Water Rats		Ridley Winter	Season 5, Episode 25
1998	Wildside		Wes	Season 1, Episode 34
	All Saints		Kenny Baxter	Season 1, Episode 21
1997	The Tower		DJ Dan	TV Movie

Awards and recognition

• 2005: Nominated for Best Screenplay in a Short Film at the AFI Awards for his work on The Djarn Djarns
• 2011: Recipient of the Bob Maza Fellowship, which recognises emerging acting talent and support professional development for Indigenous actors
• 2012: Nominated for Best Direction for The Sapphires
• July 2021: Invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

External links

• Wayne Blair at the Internet Movie Database