Wayne Blair

Wayne Blair (born 28 November 1971) is an Australian writer, actor and director. He was on both sides of the camera in Redfern Now. He is also the director of the feature film The Sapphires. Early life Blair was born in Taree, New South Wales, to Julie and Bob Blair and has two older sisters, Janet and Mandy. He is an Aboriginal Australian and he describes himself as a Batjala, Mununjali, Wakkawakka man. As Blair's father was a soldier the family moved around. While Blair was still young, his father was posted to Woodside in South Australia. When he was a teenager, Blair's family were sent to Rockhampton. In Rockhampton he excelled at cricket and rugby, then later became interested in acting and dancing at school. Blair had a job as a tour guide at Rockhampton's Dreamtime Cultural Centre, where he was also one of the dancers. He went on to do a marketing degree at Central Queensland University, though his elective subjects included comic drama and Australian drama. He briefly went to Sydney to play rugby league for the Canterbury Bulldogs under-21s. After a failed audition for NIDA in 1992, he eventually did a three-year course at the Queensland University of Technology in acting. Career highlights Blair's first recorded on-screen appearance was in a 1997 Australian TV film called The Tower. The following year he appeared on All Saints and Wildside. He has also appeared in Water Rats and Fireflies. 1998 was also the year he was one of the first four film makers to be mentored under the Metro Screen Indigenous Mentor Scheme for which he made a short film called Fade 2 Black. Ten years later he was to become a mentor himself under the same scheme.