We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jonathan Lagudi a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jonathan, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I think since I was a kid I’ve always been interested in the creative side of things. I’m from a loud, Italian-Australian family so I was always up performing for them, doing impressions or funny voices, relaying jokes I heard at school. We’re all pretty dramatic in one way or another, but for me it just seemed something that brought joy to those around me, and I loved that.

I started really knowing it was something I wanted to pursue professionally as I got older – it’s that classic thing: doing Drama as a subject in high school, doing the plays and musicals and having a few incredibly passionate & inspiring teachers (shoutout Terz & Mouldsy). Turned out I was actually pretty alright at the whole acting thing so it just followed on from there. Alongside that it was just a massive love and interest in movies – we’d go to the cinema pretty often, I’d even have my birthdays there – or we’d spend a Sunday watching DVD’s like Rocky, The Godfather or some Western that was on TV. I used to sit and watch those guys on the screen and just think it was so cool, and eventually it grew into “man, I want to do that”.

Jonathan, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m an actor, writer and director from Sydney, Australia. After studying acting at WAAPA, and being apart of a few great projects in the last few years, most recently I’ve also started to move into filmmaking. I’ve been developing a series ‘Slightly Ethnic’, which is like a big love letter to my own family & the culture I grew up with. I think the Italian community in Australia is so vibrant and passionate, but rarely represented on TV, so I’m really excited to get it back up on Aussie screens. We’re hopeful to have that project up off the ground early next year, and I’d also be acting in it too, which I’m very pumped about!

From the filmmaking side, I think it was back in 2023 there was a pretty pivotal moment in my career. I was lucky enough to work with director Gregor Jordan on Paramount/Network 10 series “North Shore”, and one day on set we started chatting about his movie “Two Hands” between takes. Listening to him talk about how he put that film together and how they just shot it around the streets of Sydney really inspired me and made me realise it’s something I really want to do. That kicked off my first short “Idiot-Proof”. Co-directed by myself an incredibly talented pal of mine Laura Brogan-Browne, it’s a comedy heist film about three friends who try to rob their own workplace. It was supposed to be just a bit of fun with friends, so I was pretty shocked to see the reception it got, especially considering it was the first thing I’d ever made. It premiered at SF3 film festival in Sydney last year and went really well, taking home Best Actor, Best Screenplay and The FilmBreaker/Best New Filmmaker Award. After that it went onto The New York Mobile Film Festival, Dublin Smart Phone Film Festival, Sydney Web Fest, The Inner West Film Fest, Sydney Lift-Off Film Festival and The Toronto Smart Phone Film Festival – picking up Best Emerging Film Maker there too. We shot it with literally no money using an iPhone 12 and an attachable lens, so I’m pretty damn proud of it and the audience response.

After the film’s success, we decided to use it as a proof-of-concept and turn it into a feature. So I joined up with an incredible screenwriter Damian Overton to co-write the screenplay, and we’re just about finished that! It’s like Two Hands meets an Aussie Guy Ritchie sort of vibe, with a little Ocean’s 11 thrown in too. I don’t think there’s really anything else like it in Australia.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I think something I had to unlearn coming out of Drama School was that idea that acting was the only source of creative fulfilment in this career path. So much of my thinking was like you graduate and then you’re almost this kind of ‘hired-gun’ as an actor, moving from one project to another project to another etc. but that’s just one small part of the industry and I wanted to do more. Entering the industry right into Covid meant that me and many of my peers had to reframe our view of the acting industry, so from there I started leaning more into writing and creating. The first thing I wrote was objectively horrible and will never see the light of day. But the 2nd was better! And the 3rd was okay! So by the time I got to actually creating my first short I started to develop a clear voice and style. The acting then almost became just a side-effect of it all, and something I’m glad I got a chance to get into this early in my career.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

Absolutely – it’s pretty simple, but for me it’s all about being part of projects that excite me and I’m proud to be a part of, whether that’s behind the camera or in front of it. Crafting a career that allows me to work both as an actor and a writer/director is what I find myself building towards. So that’s the plan: just follow both passions, go with the flow and see which doors open.

Idiot-Proof was the first project to come out under the banner of my production company “Gracetown”, with a couple more on the way, so that’s a space I’d love to continue to grow into. The Coen Brothers were a massive influence on that film and on myself in general, so I’d like to be a mix between those guys and actors like Ben Affleck or Rose Byrne that have carved out incredible acting careers whilst also making space for themselves as creatives to develop really exciting and interesting stories.

So yeah! Making cool things, being in cool things, collaborating with cool creatives. All of the above.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @jonathanlagudi
• Other: IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm11104391/