Gold Coast’s rising star calls LA home

From Trinity Lutheran College to filming with Ridley Scott

HE’S the Gold Coast actor who starred in one of the biggest Hollywood films of the past year – and barely anyone in his home town realised.

Benjamin Rigby, who fell in love with acting at Trinity Lutheran College and whose parents still call Southport home, is now living full-time in Los Angeles after legendary director Ridley Scott plucked him from obscurity for a key role in his $125 million blockbuster Alien: Covenant.

The 29-year-old filmed his gruesome death scene on the biggest set he’s ever worked on, walked red carpets alongside the likes of Michael Fassbender and was directed by the man who gave the world Blade Runner and Gladiator.

Not bad for a lad who wonders if his high school drama teacher will even remember him.

“She’ll probably be thinking ‘Who is this kid talking

about me’,” Rigby laughed of Jocelyn Carter-Moore, the long-serving Trinity theatre teacher he says inspired him to pursue a career in the arts.

“I was quite shy, one of those arty kids who kept to himself a bit … (but) she was a great teacher. I did high school plays but it wasn’t until she urged us to go watch a Lars von Trier film called Dogville at the arts centre that I fell in love with acting.”

Rigby attended Trinity until the end of Year 10 when, at his request, his parents allowed him to transfer to a Warwick boarding school for his senior years.

A three-year drama degree followed at Toowoomba’s University of Southern Queensland before he relocated to Melbourne and started the long slog so familiar to budding thespians.

He acted for free. He got bit parts and TV ads. He wrote his own short film and formed an independent theatre company with his best friend.

Most importantly, he sent out more than 70 audition tapes in 2015 alone and it was while manning the box office in the cinema job that paid the bills that he received the call that changed everything.

“I thought I’d have a brain aneurysm,” Rigby recalled of the moment his LA agent told him he had scored a role in Scott’s latest Alien film.

“I got it from a self-tape where you learn the lines and basically film yourself auditioning. They gave me an offer three months later, which is really rare.

“It was mental. I didn’t know what to expect when I came on set. All I knew was I had a really gruesome death ... and when I found out it was the first major death, I was quietly s***ing myself.

“(But) they put us through a boot camp for a few weeks and by the time you get to set, you’ve met Ridley a few times and joked with him so it’s no big deal. You just treat it like you would any work.”

In the wake of Alien, Rigby invested his savings in applying for – and being granted – a three-year visa to pursue his acting dream in the US.

He now shares house with a couple of Aussies and spends his days chasing the role that will make it all worth it.

And while it hasn’t come yet, he is comfortable with talk of Alien being his “big break”.

“I definitely am,” he said. “It got me a lot of (film) press and I’m now getting down to the last few (actors) with gigs. I’d never had that before Alien.

“(Casting) people are looking at me now. I’m getting in the room and my agent has more collateral to work with.

“Unless you’re one of the 10 to 20 actors getting offered roles consistently, you’re always auditioning.”

Rigby is set to return to Oz in coming months to star in Melbourne Theatre Company’s production of Abigail’s Party before yet again winging it back to “La La Land”.

“I’m just here until my money runs out,” he said from the US. “It's highly competitive but you just never know when you might crack it.”

(CASTING) PEOPLE ARE LOOKING AT ME NOW. I’M GETTING IN THE ROOM AND MY AGENT HAS MORE COLLATERAL TO WORK WITH. ACTOR BEN RIGBY