Grace Wriggles

Grace Wriggles launched her filmmaking career during childhood sleepovers on a Nokia phone. With the footage, she whipped up passionate romantic comedies and terrifying zombie on an old MacBook.

In high school, she graduated to the Bond University film competitions. She attended weekend workshops on theatre and screen acting. "Cinema was everything to me," she says. "Watching movies, I'd think: I want to make people feel the way this is making me feel."

All the Gold Coast efforts and initiatives happened in the background, encouraging young people, while the industry itself grew around her. Even so, like a lot of Gold Coasters, she had planned to leave. Grace told everyone she knew: "I'm going to Sydney. Don't look for me here.

"Growing up I always thought I'd leave — and I've travelled a lot, all over the world, especially for film. I once told everyone, 'I'm going to Sydney, don't look for me here.' And then I just kept getting opportunity after opportunity after opportunity here. I went, 'wow, I really can stay.'"

But it was hard to leave, for a film career, because so much was happening on the Gold Coast for people who wanted a film career. "I just kept getting opportunity after opportunity here," says Grace. "I went, 'Wow, I really can stay.' All these little initiatives. Now we're reaping the fruit the Gold Coast has sewn."

To be as close to the actual industry as possible, Grace took a job at Village Roadshow, making coffee. At the same time, she was pitching and auditioning, which the pandemic had made possible from anywhere. One day, she had a big Zoom meeting but she couldn't get out of her coffee shift.

"A colleague just unlocked everything and let me take a meeting in one of the green rooms on the stages." she says. "This is where they shot Elvis, where Austin Butler prepped, and I'm on a Zoom. It's so open."

After getting sick and tired of waiting for opportunities to find her, Grace wrote, directed, produced and acted in her first two short films: Podcasters and Red River Cowboy which went on to win multiple international awards including the Best Short Film at the Round Top Film Festival in Texas and a nomination at the AACTAs for Best Short Film.

The openness of Gold Coast culture is, for Grace, the big difference. 

"People of the Gold Coast are really open and welcoming. People that have moved here from the film industry are shocked. Gold Coasters are not gate keepers, they will show you the shortcut to do what you want to do. We celebrate each others wins.".

When Grace was offered a film position through word-of-mouth, she came to find out it was her regulars that recommended her for the role. There was so much more to making coffee. It showed determination and grit, a willingness to do jobs that some would overlook, just to be as close as possible to her dream. People noticed. “Now I'm working one of my absolute dream jobs — just because I wanted to make coffee at Village Roadshow."

Grace isn't precious. She sees every action as an opportunity. “ I'm not afraid to ask — 'if you need anyone, I'll make coffee, I'll be a runner,' I don't care. Everyone starts somewhere, and if someone high up sees grind and ambition in you, they'll invest in it. Even if they don't say it, they note it.”

When film jobs take her away, she appreciates the specialness of this place when she returns home. "I love that no matter what time I wake up, the whole city is alive. Someone's always up earlier than you, everyone's raring to go."

When she thinks of home it's the light smell of burning greenery in the hinterland, the rooster next door who doesn't know the time, the pink and purple morning skies with a light sea breeze. "But it's not surface-level, it's not aesthetic," she says. "It's a full, rounded, dimensional community. Sometimes people tell me 'you don't look like you're from the Gold Coast.' What does that even mean? It makes me want to grab them and say — let me show you what it's actually like."

Grace's first film was a dark comedy. Red River, her latest, is more confessional and personal. "My friends watched it and went, 'Oh, you put that in there.' I saw a quote once that your art should make you feel like you're standing naked in front of your audience — that true and vulnerable. Harsh truths are what make good art. If I ever made something that didn't reflect something true in me, it's not my real art."