Speaker Details

Full Name
Mark Coles Smith
Title
Actor, Writer
Country (Address)
Australia
Biography
Mark is a proud Nyikina man. With a gift for storytelling, he works across several performing arts' genres. He was most recently seen as Detective Jay Swann in ABC’s Mystery Road: Origin for which he was awarded an AACTA for Best Lead Actor in a TV Drama, and a nomination for the International AACTA in the same category. Forthcoming work includes The Clearing for Disney+, Jub Clerc's debut feature Sweet As and feature film Kid Snow. Additionally, 2022 saw Mark appear in ABC’s Savage River, as well as co-producing, co-writing and presenting a documentary on Indigenous suicide entitled Keeping Hope. Regularly recognised for his compelling talent, Mark won a Helpmann Award for Best Male Actor in a Play for his work on Leah Purcell's adaptation of The Drover's Wife. He received a Best Supporting Actor AACTA nomination, and a Best Supporting Actor win at the Film Critics' Circle of Australia awards for his work in the feature film Last Cab to Darwin. For Pawno, he received an AACTA nomination for Best Supporting Actor and was the recipient of the Casting Guild of Australia's inaugural Sirius Award for New Talent of the Future. Mark’s television credits include Old School, opposite Bryan Brown and Sam Neill. A lead guest in Modern Family, Picnic at Hanging Rock, US series Hunters, Gods of Wheat Street, Hard Rock Medical (co-production between SBS TV and Canada's TV Ontario), Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries and many more. Mark was also a regular contributor on Shaun Micallef's Mad as Hell for ABC and presented the ABC documentary Will Australia Ever Have a Black Prime Minister?. Alongside a number of high-profile stage and voiceover credits, Mark also works as a sound designer under the alias Kalaji, to much industry acclaim.