Named after the number worn by Adam Goodes, a new play takes on AFL culture
The emotional and physical demands that 37 places on its cast aren’t for the faint of heart.
By John Bailey
Acting, says Shaw, “came out of nowhere”.Credit: Wayne Taylor
It’s the day after Ngali Shaw received the inaugural Brian Walsh Award for best emerging talent at this year’s AACTAs. The 23-year-old from Dubbo describes the night as “surreal”. His win was announced by Nicole Kidman – who also funded the $50,000 prize – at a ceremony whose attendees included industry heavyweights such as Margot Robbie and Cate Blanchett.
But where others might still be reeling at the accolade and all it represents, Shaw is straight back into rehearsals for a role that even seasoned actors might approach with hesitation. Last year he won over MTC audiences with his performance in the moving play Jacky, but his next MTC show is a world away from that experience – 37 explores the internal and external pressures of an AFL club, and the emotional and physical demands it places on its cast aren’t for the faint of heart.
“It’s so tiring. It’s literally footy training, that’s how much you sweat, and we haven’t even gone 100 per cent yet,” he says.
Ngali Shaw won the 2024 AACTA Brian Walsh award last month for his role in The Twelve.Credit: Getty
Shaw plays Jayma, one of two Indigenous cousins recruited to a state AFL team that’s seriously struggling. The pair are star players who might be the key to turning around the team’s fortunes, but simmering beneath the practice sessions and bonding exercises is a mean streak of resentment and racism that grows increasingly ugly with every victory on the field.
The play doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to depicting the reality of racism. When the cast sat down for their first collective read-through, some new lines had been added to the script. “Hearing them for the first time, I was shocked. But it was good. I was like ‘that’s such a strong line. But I hate it.’”
It takes a delicate touch to ensure that those kinds of tensions don’t spill off the stage, but Shaw says that the team of actors has developed a solid foundation of trust. “We’re definitely in it together. We know we have to be on the same page. We know each other’s character’s personality traits, we know where we’re going, and that makes it so much easier.”
The play’s title comes from the number worn by Adam Goodes, whose memorable war cry and dance in 2015 was a significant moment in AFL history. Shaw is fascinated by the sequence of events that occurred around that moment, but it’s relative news to him – he grew up in Dubbo, where AFL isn’t really a thing.
Warren Lee, Damien Strouthos and Ngali Shaw as jurors in the courtroom drama The Twelve.Credit: Brooke Rushton
Instead, the young Shaw was heavily into NRL. “My dad forced all six of us into it and growing up I wanted to be an NRL star. Greg Inglis was the man that I wanted to be.” By high school he’d also taken up basketball and dance, had started making his own music, and knew his future would be less academic and “more on the physical or creative side”.
Opportunities in the regional town were thin on the ground, however. “At 16 or 17 I was just trying to figure out what I wanted to do … I dropped out of school at the start of year 12 because I needed money. I had to help pay rent with Mum so I had to get a job. And I hated it. I loved working at the school – I was a teacher’s aide – but before that, I was working at Big W and hated it so much.”
His family had always had mixed feelings about their boy pursuing a creative career. “Dad didn’t like it. He didn’t tell me that, face to face, but I just knew. He was like, ‘hold onto a plan B because you need a stable job’. I said ‘I don’t want that. I know what I want, I just need to find out how to get there.’ ”
His mother encouraged him to chase his dreams. Perhaps every mum thinks their kids are beautiful, but in Shaw’s case she was right. His mother entered him in a modelling competition without his knowledge, which is how, at 17, he won the 2018 Aboriginal Model Search competition. He first heard about it when he was named a finalist.
“It was crazy. I was like ‘why am I here?’ I was in a room with a bunch of other models and these were good-looking dudes and girls. I couldn’t compete with these people! I think what won was my dance. It wasn’t my looks at all, just my dancing.”
There were still a few years before another bit of motherly support set him on the rapid ascent he’s enjoying today.
“The acting thing came out of nowhere,” Shaw says. One day, he was making music in his room when his mum came in with an ad she’d found: “They needed some Indigenous actors, no experience needed. I don’t know what that job was but it was through McGregor Casting and they got back to me and said ‘not this role, but we’ll send you any other auditions that come up because we loved your tape.’”
TAKE 7: THE ANSWERS ACCORDING TO NGALI SHAW
- Worst habit? Overthinker.
- Greatest fear? Spiders.
- The line that stayed with you? Not sure if it’s from anywhere but: “Do you want a hood life or a good life?”
- Biggest regret? Not moving out of Dubbo sooner.
- Favourite room? My car, because it’s the one place that’s always been there no matter what’s going on - it’s got the music so I can chill and escape.
- The artwork/song you wish was yours? It hasn’t happened yet but I wish a certain character was mine: Eden Fesi aka Manifold, a Marvel character that I hope to bring to the screen for the first time one day.
- If you could solve one thing... It would be my financial situation!
Soon enough the casting agency suggested he audition for a guest role on RFDS, the TV drama centred on the Royal Flying Doctor Service. He won the part. “It sort of kicked on from there. Straight after that I got an agent, started getting work.”
In 2022, he scored a part in the Foxtel series The Twelve, opposite Sam Neill and Brooke Satchwell. This year he’ll share the screen with Pia Miranda and Jessica Mauboy in the feature Windcatcher, and play a role in the much-anticipated TV adaptation of Ladies in Black.
Not bad for an actor with no training. Well, almost no training. Long before “the acting thing” took off, he did take a little one-day class at his local dance studio. “I forget the teacher’s name… but we ended up having big problems with that guy. He made a comment about a didgeridoo, ‘it’s just a piece of log’ and stuff like that, and that sort of turned me off acting.”
Thankfully, he reversed that opinion; 37 will showcase just how far the young actor has come in a few short years, and the confidence he’s developed means that he already feels at home when he walks into a room filled with big names. “I sort of pinched myself with Sam Neill, but not much freezes me up. Most of the time I’m like, I expected to be here, this is what I came to do.”
That confidence might take him a long way, and soon. He’s planning on using some of his AACTA Award money to test out international waters. “At the awards night I told [First Nations actor] Rob Collins that I want to make it big here and then go overseas, and he said ‘don’t wait. The sooner you go over there, the better it’s going to be.’ So I’m going over to the US or UK to try and make my name over there.”
37 opens on March 2. mtc.com.au
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