Thomas Weatherall is the name on everyone’s lips right now. As the star of teen drama reboot, Heartbreak High, the 23-year-old became an instant sensation. With that came the roles. His latest is his favourite yet, he tells WHO from his home in Sydney’s Inner West.
In Stan’s new psychological drama Exposure, Weatherall plays Angus, a guy from Port Kembla, NSW, whose ex-girlfriend, Kel (Mia Artemis) takes her own life. The show centres around Kel’s best friend, photographer Jacs (Alice Englert), and her battle with grief, and the moments that led up to and influenced Kel’s heartbreaking final decision. Weatherall says the series is essentially a study on grief, and how people cope when they’re faced with the feeling.
“Exposure is one of the best Aussie shows I’ve seen in a long time,” he declares.
He’s not wrong. While incredibly sad, it’s also real and raw. It leaves you thinking about the characters and what they’ve gone through long after the final episode.
“Minus my involvement, truly, it’s a show I’d be watching even if I had nothing to do with it,” the Kamilaroi actor adds.
Australia’s newest ‘It’ boy wasn’t always destined for the small and silver screens. Born and raised in Rockhampton, Qld, Weatherall was once primed to be a contemporary dancer.
“It’s the most random thing in the world,” he laughs when asked if the creative arts ran in his family. “My family is not an artistic family. My parents aren’t artists. My sister is also a dancer and my brothers play instruments. They’re interested in the arts but we’re not some creative, booming household,” he muses, explaining that becoming an actor happened by accident, or perhaps by association.
“I did intense dance training from the age of 6 … 17 to 40 plus hours a week. That was my life,” he recalls. “I was set to be a contemporary dancer. Then in high school, I got cast in the school musical because I was a boy who could dance, because no other boys danced, and so I was forced into acting in that way and I fell in love with it. I then started falling in love with cinema, television and theatre.”
For now, he’ll just have to revel in the opportunities coming his way. His debut play Blue, a one-man show in which Weatherall stars, is enjoying a run in Brisbane after seasons in Sydney and Adelaide. A third and final season of Heartbreak High has just been announced, and he’ll next star opposite Jacob Elordi in The Narrow Road to the Deep North, a series about the cruelty of war and construction of the Burma Railway in 1943.
“It’s a nice position to be in and it’s still very surreal,” he says of his quick rise to fame, telling WHO his success so far has allowed him to pick and choose his projects. Still, “Exposure is my favourite thing I’ve done to date.”
Exposure is streaming now on Stan.
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