Mark Coles Smith

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.^[10]

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.^[11]

In 2021, Coles Smith was cast in Mystery Road: Origin, a prequel to the original two series.^[12][13] In the prequel, Coles Smith played a younger version of detective Jay Swan, a role originated by Aaron Pedersen.^[14]

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.^[15]

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.^[16] The film premiered at the Sydney Film Festival in June 2023,^[17] ahead of its airing on NITV and SBS Television.^[18] 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.^[19]

In 2023, Coles Smith became the first Indigenous Australian actor ever to be nominated for a Gold Logie.^[20][5] 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.^[20] 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.^[21] On 21 November 2024, it was announced that ABC had ordered a second series of Mystery Road: Origin, with Coles Smith to reprise the role of Jay Swan.^[22]

In 2025 Coles Smith narrated the ABC TV nature series "The Kimberley".^[23]

Stage acting

Coles Smith has performed in several stage plays. He gave his first stage performance as a child, Crabbing at High Tide,^[24] presented as part of the Perth International Arts Festival in 2005.^[25]

His 2016 performance in The Drover's Wife at the Belvoir Theatre in Sydney^[26] earned him the Helpmann Award for Best Male Actor in a Play in 2017.^[27]

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,^[28] then touring to Perth, Melbourne, and then Wellington and Auckland in New Zealand in February and March of that year.^[24]

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.^[29]

Under the stage name Kalaji (the Nyikina word for "whirlwind"^[30]), Coles Smith gave his first musical/multimedia performance, named "Night River", at the Yirramboi arts festival in Melbourne in 2019.^[31] The work explored Nyikina country and the Mardoowarra (aka Martuwarra, or Fitzroy River area).^[32]

In December 2021, under the name Kalaji, he released an electro-pop album of the same name.^[33] 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.^[31] It includes field recordings of natural sounds,^[34] and one of the ten tracks is named "Wandjina",^[33] the cloud and rain spirits of Aboriginal Australian mythology.^[35]

Narration (audio)

In 2020, Coles Smith narrated an extract from the Banjo Paterson's poem "The Man From Snowy River" on RN Breakfast.^[36]

Coles Smith narrated the audiobook of Tasmanian Aboriginal author Adam Thompson's short story collection, Born Into This (2021).^[37]

In 2023 he narrated and co-produced the epic book by Greg Campbell in a 31-year collaboration with senior Law-keeper Lulu (Nyikina elder, Paddy Roe) and the Goolarabooloo people, Total Reset: realigning with our timeless holistic blueprint for living.^[38]

Television

Film

Narrator/presenter

As actor

As crew

Sources:^[49][39]