For Gold Logie-nominated actor Mark Coles Smith, David Bowie wasn't just an artist who offered the soundtrack to a transformative period in his life. Coles-Smith tells of a family connection to the much-loved musician.
When it comes to brushes with fame, Mark Coles Smith has a story to rival even the best: a family connection to David Bowie.
As well as the novelty of the family connection, Coles Smith — who's starred in Mystery Road and Last Cab to Darwin — shared that Bowie's music had helped ground him during a transformative period. The year before, at 14, he landed his first major role in an afternoon children's series shot in Broome.
On one such visit, he heard a beat come on, blasted from a speaker nearby, that would spark a new creative love. "Music's one of the most beautiful ways of telling stories, but it's also a beautiful way of bringing you into the story and making you part of it.While many will recognise Coles Smith from his fictional characters, one of his latest projects is a documentary that confronts the all-too-real issue of the disproportionately high rates of suicide in Indigenous men in the Kimberley.