Constructing persona: mediatisation, performativity, quality, and branding in Australian film actors’ migration to Hollywood

Over the last 30 years, Australian acting has managed to migrate successfully particularly into Hollywood film. This is an interesting phenomenon in and of itself and identifies the different movement of content and value between cinema cultures and economies. Through a public persona analysis of particular Australian film stars this chapter explores how their professional and fictional identities have inhabited Hollywood film and its associated culture of promotion. It will interrogate how these formations of character, persona and brand are linked with the internal exigencies of contemporary Hollywood itself and how these kinds of figures emerged from the production process of acting/promotion within Australia and allowed them to move successfully into various international tropes of film acting and quality. Through a study of the various success stories of Australian actors in American film and television, the chapter investigates the four elements of persona construction: collective identity/construction, relationship to publics, the mediatization of their identities into celebrity public figures, and their performativity identities. It concludes with a summary of how these all connect to building intentional value - the fifth element of persona construction - as aspects of branding and autonomous economic value are part of the personal ambition, agency and desire of Australian actors to work within the Hollywood media and entertainment industry.