Biography
Aaron McGrath is an Indigenous actor whose family comes from Gulargambone, a small town in the central west plains of New South Wales, Australia. Born in 1996, he grew up in Redfern Sydney and graduated from Lewisham Christian Brothers in 2013. Represented by T&E Management in Australia he has established a presence on screens both nationally and internationally, small and large.
His breakthrough role in 2012 was playing Joel Shields on the hit Australian TV series Redfern Now and his success has continued with other major TV credits including the heart-warming story of the Freeburn Clan in The Gods of Wheat Street (2012), In Your Dreams (2014), political thriller The Code (2014), drama mystery The Doctor Blake Mysteries (2015), the two-part mini-series of the classic Australian Story The Secret River (2015) with Sarah Snook and Tim Minchin, which won Most Outstanding Miniseries or Telemovie at the 2016 Logie Awards, Ready For This (2015), hit series Doctor Doctor (2016), the Melbourne WebFest Best Australian Drama Award and Grand Jury Award winner based on the lives of Monty and Paul Pryor Wrong Kind of Black (2018) in which Aaron played Paul Pryor, the all-star driven Mystery Road (2018) with Judy Davis, Aaron Pedersen, Deborah Mailman, Madeleine Madden, and Ernie Dingo amongst others, KGB (2019), Thalu (2019) Black Comedy (2019) and Glitch Series 1,2 and 3.
In 2013 he landed in his first full length feature film with Christina Ricci in Around the Block. Aaron's major cinematic breakthrough came when he worked with Indigenous director Rachel Perkins alongside Australian legends Hugo Weaving and Toni Collette, playing the title role in Jasper Jones (2017). The film was based on the book of the same title and deals with racial inequality and was therefore dubbed Australia's 'To Kill A Mockingbird', receiving 7 AACTA nominations. His next major role was playing Private Brian Hornung in Danger Close (2019). the Australian war film about The Battle of Long Tan.
Other credits include short films Destiny In The Dirt, Jackey Jackey, Brown Lips and Miro, performing in The Yellamundie Festival, National Play Festival, Short Blacks Workshop and theatre production Black Cockatoo for The Ensemble in Sydney 2020. Aaron is also an Ambassador for Deadly Choices, the health and lifestyle programme for young Indigenous Australians.
