George Pullar (l) and Ethan Panizz in ‘Playing for Keeps’ (Photo: Network 10).
For a guy who fell into acting after he badly injured one leg at high school in Brisbane, George Pullar is carving out an impressive career.
Now 22, Pullar made his screen debuts in Goalpost Pictures’ Fighting Season and Seven Studios’ A Place to Call Home straight after graduating from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA).
Following that he played a star AFL recruit in Screentime’s Playing For Keeps, which Network 10 has renewed for next year.
Capping a memorable year, he was named among the Casting Guild of Australia’s 10 Rising Stars, together with Michael Sheasby, Harry Greenwood, Tess Haubrich, Markella Kavenagh, George Zhao, Milly Alcock, Kimie Tsukakoshi, Harvey Zielinski and Alexandra Jensen.
After he injured his leg when he was 16, requiring a cast, his mother suggested he take up drama classes. He did so and his drama teacher encouraged him to take the role of the third juror in the school play, Reginald Rose’s ‘Twelve Angry Men’.
“I was really nervous, a fish-out-of -water, but I loved it and discovered a passion for acting,” he tells IF.
The drama teacher urged him to go to drama school so he applied to WAAPA. After graduating he was signed by Linsten’s Mangement’s Sarah Linsten and he auditioned for Fighting Season and A Place to Call Home.
The shooting schedules overlapped but as both were commissioned by Foxtel he managed to juggle the two roles. He played Larry Grey, a fun-loving, impressionable country lad who falls in love with Leah (Madeleine Clunies-Ross), a Jewish girl, in A Place to Call Home.
In Fighting Season he played Private Jarrod ‘Toasti Vogel, part of an ensemble cast which included Ewen Leslie, Jay Ryan, Julian Maroun and Milly Alcock. “That was truly special,” he says.
“Ewen is exactly the kind of actor I want to replicate with his success in films, TV and theatre. He is incredibly humble and grounded.”
Another thrill was collaborating with the lead director Kate Woods, whom he describes as “everything you want in a director as a young actor: she made me feel so confident and gave me a lot of flexibility and room to move.”
He enjoyed working in Playing for Keeps as a young footballer who goes to Melbourne with his girlfriend Paige (Cece Peters) and finds their relationship is tested when he is showered with girls, money and sponsorship.
He hopes a film he has been offered will shoot early next year before he starts filming the second season of 10’s comedy-drama in May.
Pullar has made two trips to the US in hopes of getting his first break there and he signed with LA-based Silver Lining Entertainment’s Jeff Golenberg.
While he intends to spend more time in the US next year he says: “I would always want to balance my work. I am very passionate about Australian films and TV.”