Young Aussie actor Ross Langley has scored his first film role – in Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken.
The NIDA graduate is spending three weeks on the Gold Coast filming the drama based on the true story of US Olympic athlete Louis Zamperini, who was captured by the Japanese in WW2.
Langley originally was offered a small role but then snagged the part of Mitchell, a pilot colleague of Zamperini’s.
Like many young actors who’ve been cast in the Universal film, he self-recorded an audition and sent it to the producers. He’s repped in Australia by United Management and in the US by UTA.
Englishman Jack O’Connell (Harry Brown, TV’s Skins, 300: Rise of an Empire) plays Zamperini, who was a member of the US track team in the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
While serving in the war as a US Air Force bombardier, he survived a plane crash in the Pacific Ocean and after 47 days on a life raft was interned in a Japanese prison camp.
The cast includes Garrett Hedlund (Inside Llewyn Davis), Domhnall Gleeson (About Time), Alex Russell (Carrie, Cut Snake), Finn Wittrock (Noah), Japanese singer/guitarist Miyavi and newcomer CJ Valleroy.
Universal has dated the film for December 26. This is Jolie’s second directorial effort following The Land Of Blood And Honey, a romantic drama set against the backdrop of the Bosnian War.