The White Lotus and Last Of Us star Murray Bartlett will join the Sydney set of Kornél Mundruczó’s Place To Be, as filming continues at Disney Studios and on location across the city.
Written by Kata Wéber, the drama follows the unlikely friendship of elderly woman Brooke (Ellen Burstyn) and a middle-aged man (Taika Waititi) as they travel from Chicago to New York to return a lost racing pigeon home.
Bartlett will play Ron, the son of Brooke and brother to Molly, portrayed by fellow new addition Pamela Anderson. Together with Molly, Ron plots to move his mother into a care facility, while also hoping to get his hands on their late artist father’s inheritance.
A graduate of NIDA, Bartlett’s career began more than three decades ago with roles on The Flying Doctors and Home and Away, and continued with recurring appearances in E Street, Neighbours, and The Secret Life of Us, among others.
Since relocating to the US in 2000, he has had regular roles on HBO’s Looking, Netflix’s Tales of the City reboot, Apple TV+’s Physical alongside fellow Aussie Rose Byrne, and the first season of The White Lotus, for which his portrayal of hapless hotel manager Armond earned him AACTA, Critics’ Choice and Primetime Emmy Awards.
Since his US breakthrough cameo in Sex And The City way back in 2001, Bartlett has earned critical acclaim for successive roles, including the world’s most popular dramedy series right now, The White Lotus, playing Armond, a hapless luxury hotel manager in the murder mystery’s blockbuster 2021 debut season.
For this portrayal, Bartlett received nominations at the Screen Actors Guild Awards and Independent Spirit Awards and won at the AACTA awards, Critics’ Choice Television Awards, and Primetime Emmy Awards.
Place To Be will be the first of two collaborations Bartlett will have with director Mundruczó and Weber, with the actor also set to star opposite Amy Adams in At The Sea, about a woman that a woman returns to her family’s beach home, readjusting to her old life without her career that gave her identity.
He arrives in Sydney from Thailand, having wrapped filming the lead role in the second season of Nine Perfect Strangers, opposite Nicole Kidman.