Blueback is a truly inspiring coming-of-age story, in which a young girl befriends a wild blue groper. When poachers close in on Blueback and his habitat, Abby gears up to try and do the impossible.
Blueback is made by some of Australia's greatest filmmakers, but it comes to life thanks to a truly incredible cast. Here's a breakdown of who they are, and where you might know them from.
Mia Wasikowska plays the adult Abby. Mia's breakout role was in the 2010 Tim Burton film Alice in Wonderland where she played the title role - you know, Alice? You might have also seen her turning out stunning performances in Blackbird (alongside Kate Winslet, Sam Neill and Susan Sarandon), or in the recent critical darling Judy & Punch, which debuted at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and landed Mia the Film Critics Circle of Australia Award for Best Actress.
Radha Mitchell plays Dora, Abby's activist mother. Radha is an instantly recognisable face. She got her start in the world of Aussie television, appearing in Blue Heelers, Phoenix and of course Neighbours. But it's her appearances in some truly ground-breaking Hollywood blockbusters - Joel Schumacher's Phone Booth (opposite Colin Farrell), with Denzel Washington in Man on Fire, or in the Academy Award-winning Finding Neverland, where she really got a chance to shine. Essentially, there's very little Radha can't do.
Ilsa Fogg is a newcomer, but don't let that fool you. She plays the teenage Abby and brings the passionate young activist to life with an almost effortless performance. She also does an incredible job of embodying Mia Wasikowska's older version of Abby, something very few actors could pull off - playing the younger version of a recognised actor rarely works, but here, Ilsa nails it. Ilsa is one to watch out for in the coming years.
Liz Alexander has worked extensively in theatre, film and television, beginning her acting career in 1967 and is also a NIDA graduate.
Her feature film credits include Fred Schepisi's The Eye of the Storm and The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Summerfield, Sebastian and the Sparrow, Fatal Honeymoon, The Killing of Angel Street and The Clinic. She also wrote and directed Memento, which was released by Village Roadshow.
Liz's extensive television credits include: Clickbait, The Secrets She Keeps, Home and Away, All Saints, Alien Cargo, Salem's Lot, The Lost World, Farscape, Singles, Silent Number, and Seven Little Australians.
Her stage work encompasses: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Heretic, Old Times(for Sydney Theatre Company); Uncle Vanya, Prin, Tartuffe, A Winter's Tale, The Rivals, Betrayal, Arms and the Man and Macbeth(Melbourne Theatre Company).
Blueback is Ariel Donoghue's first feature film. In 2021 she stared in the Stan original series Wolf Like Me, directed by Abe Forsythe and acting alongside Isla Fisher and Josh Gad. Ariel has also appeared in a number of short film projects including Tough directed by Taylor Ferguson and Crossing Paths directed by JJ Winlove. Both of these projects were screened at the 2021 Sydney Film Festival.
Ariel continues to love freediving which she learnt over a period of several months in preparation for playing the Young Abby in Blueback. She remains hopeful of meeting another Blue Groper fish that she can befriend in real life.
Clarence Ryan plays Briggs. Clarence is a critically acclaimed indigenous actor with a string of accolades under his belt - he most recently appeared in Mystery Road: Origin, but his very first role was opposite Mia Wasikowksa in a 2007 Tropfest film called September! Reunited at last! He was brilliant in the second season of indigenous superhero show Cleverman, and garnered heaps of attention in the Emmy-nominated ABC series Wrong Kind of Black.
Pedrea Jackson comes from 3 clan groups in the Barkly region of the Northern Territory and is a proud Jingili, Mudburra, Waramungu Man.
Pedrea received rave reviews as the lead role in the AACTA award winning short-form series Robbie Hood, for SBS and Ludo Studio, directed by Dylan River (Finke: There and Back, Sweet Country) and written by Kodie Bedford (Mystery Road, Grace Beside Me).
In 2021 Pedrea joined the cast of Sweet As for director Jub Clerc. He was also cast in the role of Lawson Tiler on the new ABC / Netflix series Maverix, screening in 2022.
Pedrea will next join the cast of the ABC Me TV series Crazy Fun Park.
Eric Bana plays an ally of Abby, Macka - and if you're going to cast a character you can trust, you have to go with Bana, right? Eric worked previously with Robert Connolly, director of Blueback, in the global sensation The Dry, in which Bana played Detective Aaron Falk. Aussie audiences will remember Bana's terrifying turn in the gritty true crime flick Chopper, after which he was catapulted into Hollywood, appearing in Ang Lee's The Hulk, Spielberg's Munich, and as Nero, the villain in J.J. Abrams's Star Trek. He also turned out a really disturbing performance in the 2018 series Dirty John.