Australian actor and musician
Mark Coles Smith (born 1987), also known by his musical identity as Kalaji, is an Aboriginal Australian actor of stage and screen, sound designer, field recordist, writer, and composer. He is known for his roles in the feature films Last Cab to Darwin (2015), Picnic at Hanging Rock (2018), and Occupation: Rainfall (2020), as well as the television series Mystery Road: Origin (2022), and the Canadian series Hard Rock Medical (2013–18).
In 2023 he became the first Indigenous Australian actor to be nominated for a Gold Logie and won Best Actor in a Series in both the AACTA International Awards as well as the domestic AACTA Awards for his role in Mystery Road: Origin.
Early life and education
Coles Smith was born in 1987[1] in Kalgoorlie, in Western Australia, and grew up on a cattle station on the Fitzroy River, two hours' drive north of Broome, in the Kimberley region of the state.[2][3] This was his mother's country, the land of the Nyikina people.[3] His grandfather was a pearl diver, and Coles Smith has said that his family were all very hardworking.[4]
His parents separated when he was young, and travelled around the country (including at Southern Cross University in Lismore, New South Wales; and in Brisbane, Perth, and Broome) with his mother, who was an academic who lectured in Indigenous mental health. He did not reconnect with his father, who ran art projects in remote communities, until he was around 10 or 11 years old. He felt an instant rapport and familiarity with his father, who he described as possessing a kind of "German eccentricity".[4]
He made his debut in the Network Ten children's TV show Ocean Star at the age of 14 after being taken to an open audition by his aunt.[5][3]
In 2007, Coles Smith received the Wilin Centre for Indigenous Arts and Cultural Development's Yvonne Cohen Award. He earned a certificate from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts in Aboriginal Theatre,[6] a course offered only once in Broome, in which eight students attended classes for six months. He later said that most of his training came from working with experienced actors, such as Lisa Flanagan.[2]
Career
Coles Smith has worked in acting, sound design, field recording, writing, and composing music.[3]
Film and television
After filming his role in The Gods of Wheat Street in 2014, Coles Smith was cast in an episode of American sitcom Modern Family, playing a tour guide called Koora in an episode filmed in the Blue Mountains in New South Wales.[7]
Coles Smith won critical acclaim for his performance as Tilly in Last Cab to Darwin, and was awarded with FCCA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in 2015.[8]
In 2021, Coles Smith was cast in Mystery Road: Origin, a prequel to the original two series.[9][10] In the prequel, Coles Smith played a younger version of detective Jay Swan, a role originated by Aaron Pedersen.[11]
Following Chris Brown's defection from Network 10 to the Seven Network in 2023, Coles Smith succeeded Brown as the narrator of The Dog House Australia.[12]
Coles Smith features as narrator and interviewer in the documentary Keeping Hope, directed by Tyson Mowarin, which examines the high rates of suicide in Indigenous communities in the Kimberley.[13] The film premiered at the Sydney Film Festival in June 2023,[14] ahead of its airing on NITV and SBS Television.[15] In the film, Coles Smith opens up about his own and his family's experiences with the impact of suicide of close friends and family members. Steve Dow of The Guardian gave the film four out of five stars.[16]
In 2023, Coles Smith became the first Indigenous Australian actor ever to be nominated for a Gold Logie.[17][3] He also received nominations for the Logie Award for Most Popular Actor and the industry-voted Logie Award for Most Outstanding Actor for his role on Mystery Road: Origin.[17] He was one of three identities from ABC TV nominated for the Gold Logie, along with Leigh Sales and Shaun Micallef, with Coles Smith crediting the latter with helping him draw inspiration from the "Curiosity Cul-de-sac" parodies on Shaun Micallef's Mad as Hell for his role on Mystery Road: Origin.[18]
Stage acting
Coles Smith has performed in several stage plays. He gave his first stage performance as a child, Crabbing at High Tide,[19] presented as part of the Perth International Arts Festival in 2005.[20]
His 2016 performance in The Drover's Wife at the Belvoir Theatre in Sydney[21] earned him the Helpmann Award for Best Male Actor in a Play in 2017.[22]
Coles Smith played a leading role opposite Jack Charles in ILBIJERRI Theatre Company's Black Ties, first performed for the Sydney Festival in January 2020,[23] then touring to Perth, Melbourne, and then Wellington and Auckland in New Zealand in February and March of that year.[19]
Music
Coles Smith was the sound designer for the play Which Way Home at the Belvoir, produced by ILBIJERRI as part of the Sydney Festival and directed by Rachael Maza Long.[24]
Under the stage name Kalaji (the Nyikina word for "whirlwind"[25]), Coles Smith gave his first musical/multimedia performance, named "Night River", at the Yirramboi arts festival in Melbourne in 2019.[26] The work explored Nyikina country and the Mardoowarra (aka Martuwarra, or Fitzroy River area).[27]
In December 2021, under the name Kalaji, he released an electro-pop album of the same name.[28] NME reviewer Cat Woods described the music as reminiscent of Icelandic band Sigur Rós, and overall "an atmospheric, expansive adventure in synths, instrumentals, field recordings, and treated vocals – and a meditation on themes of intergenerational wisdom and memory". Partly recorded on country and produced at Wawili Sound Studios in Broome, Coles Smith explores his relationship with Martuwarra (the Fitzroy River catchment area) and his Nyikina culture.[26] It includes field recordings of natural sounds,[29] and one of the ten tracks is named "Wandjina",[28] the cloud and rain spirits of Aboriginal Australian mythology.[30]
Narration (audio)
In 2020, Coles Smith narrated an extract from the Banjo Paterson's poem " The Man From Snowy River" on RN Breakfast.[31]
Coles Smith narrated the audiobook of Tasmanian Aboriginal author Adam Thompson's short story collection, Born Into This (2021).[32]
Personal life
Coles Smith was deeply affected by the suicide of a close friend in 2011, when he was 23 years old, but kept his experience and feelings hidden until several weeks into the making of the documentary Keeping Hope ten years later.[16]
In an appearance on Take 5, a show hosted by Zan Rowe on ABC Television and in an hour-long interview on Double J in October 2023, Coles Smith revealed the five songs that he had found most centering, or grounding, in his life:[4]
Also on Take 5, Coles Smith said that his grandmother was Ningali Lawford, then a dancer at Bangarra Dance Theatre in Sydney (later an actress). He said that she had a three-month relationship with David Bowie, who asked her to accompany him back to Berlin, but she refused.[39]
Coles Smith moved to Melbourne in 2015.[40] After many years of living on the east coast of Australia, he had returned to his hometown Broome by 2023.[3]
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