Tasia Zalar (born 1992) is an Indigenous Australian actress and musician. She was nominated for Most Popular New Talent at the

Logie Awards The Logie Awards (officially the TV Week Logie Awards; colloquially known as The Logies) is an annual gathering to celebrate Australian television, sponsored and organised by the magazine ''TV Week''. The first ceremony was held in 1959 as the ...

for her role as Shevorne Shields in the

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

series '' Mystery Road''. She appeared on ''Elle'' Australia's List of 2019.

Early life

Zalar was born in

Cairns Cairns (, ) is a city in Queensland, Australia, on the tropical north east coast of Far North Queensland. The population in June 2019 was 153,952, having grown on average 1.02% annually over the preceding five years. The city is the 5th-most-p ...

Far North Queensland Far North Queensland (FNQ) is the northernmost part of the Australian state of Queensland. Its largest city is Cairns and it is dominated geographically by Cape York Peninsula, which stretches north to the Torres Strait, and west to the Gulf C ...

. She is of

Gunggandji The Guŋgañji, also transcribed Gungganyji, Gunggandji, Kongkandji, and other variations, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the state of Queensland. Language The Guŋgañji speak Gungay, a dialect of the Yidiny language. Country Norman T ...

Kaurareg Kaurareg (alt. Kauraraiga, plural Kauraraigalai, Kauraregale) is the name for one of the Indigenous Australian groups collectively known as Torres Strait Islander peoples, although many or most identify as Aboriginal Australians. They are the ...

, Gugu Thaypan,

Mualgal Mua people (Mualgal) alternatively the Moa, are an indigenous Australian Torres Strait Island people based on Moa (Banks Island). According to Alfred Cort Haddon their lifestyle, culture, myths and kinship networks overlapped closely with those ...

, Gumulgal, and

Wuthathi The Wuthathi, also known as the Mutjati, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the state of Queensland. Anthropologist Norman Tindale distinguished the Mutjati from the Otati, whereas AIATSIS treats the two ethnonyms as variants related to th ...

heritage. She attended

Trinity Bay State High School Trinity Bay State High is a co-educational high school in Manunda, Queensland, Australia. In 2015, it had an enrolment of about 1650 students across year levels 7 to 12. The school draws from the surrounding “three M” suburbs of Cairns ( Man ...

. She played football and marngrook with the North Cairns Tigers growing up. She moved to

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

at 19 and splits her time between there and

Townsville Townsville is a city on the north-eastern coast of Queensland, Australia. With a population of 180,820 as of June 2018, it is the largest settlement in North Queensland; it is unofficially considered its capital. Estimated resident population, 3 ...

Career

Zalar began her career when she was 15 in the titular role of the short film ''Nia's Melancholy'', which premiered at the 2009

Message Sticks Festival Message Sticks Festival, also known for some time as Message Sticks Indigenous Film Festival, was an arts festival celebrating the culture of Aboriginal Australians, based at the Sydney Opera House, between 1999 and 2013. It focused on film for ...

. She then made her feature film debut as Coral in ''

Uninhabited The list of uninhabited regions includes a number of places around the globe. The list changes year over year as human beings migrate into formerly uninhabited regions, or migrate out of formerly inhabited regions. List As a group, the list of ...

'' and her television debut as Bridget Titui in the

ABC1 ABC TV, formerly known as ABC1, is an Australian national public television network. It is owned and operated by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and is the flagship ABC Television network. The headquarters of the ABC TV channel an ...

miniseries ''

The Straits ''The Straits'' is an Australian television drama series for ABC1 filmed in Cairns, the Torres Strait Islands and other Far North Queensland locations. The series is based on an idea by actor Aaron Fa'aoso and produced by Penny Chapman and Hel ...

''. In 2018, Zalar began starring as Shevorne Shields in the neo-Western series '' Mystery Road''. In addition to receiving a Logie nomination, she won two

Equity Ensemble Awards The Equity Ensemble Awards (or Equity Awards) are an Australian awards system, that is an accolade presented by The Equity Foundation, the performers branch of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA). The awards have been presented annu ...

alongside her cast mates. In film, she appeared in the ''Vale Light'' installment of the 2019 horror anthology '' Dark Place'', the 2021 sports drama ''

Streamline Streamline may refer to: Business * Streamline Air, American regional airline * Adobe Streamline, a discontinued line tracing program made by Adobe Systems * Streamline Cars, the company responsible for making the Burney car Engineering ...

'', and the sequel to the zombie apocalypse film ''

Wyrmwood ''Wyrmwood'' (also known as ''Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead'') is a 2014 Australian action-horror film directed by Kiah Roache-Turner and starring Jay Gallagher, Bianca Bradey, Leon Burchill, Keith Agius, Berynn Schwerdt and Luke McKenzie. The scree ...

''.

Filmography

Film

Television

Awards and nominations

References

External links

* Living people 1992 births 21st-century Australian actresses Actresses from Queensland Indigenous Australian actresses People from Cairns Torres Strait Islanders {{Australia-actor-stub