A Canberran in Los Angeles is defying the odds of making it in Tinseltown, doing five auditions a day, working alongside Steven Spielberg and Nicolas Cage and living in West Hollywood, 20 minutes from Santa Monica Beach.
Rob Shiells’ lifestyle in La-La Land is a far cry from his early days at Budding Entertainment in Braddon and Perform Australia in Griffith, but he hasn’t forgotten where he came from and he’s back home this week to mentor aspiring actors.
Despite meeting megastars like Hugh Jackman and bumping into Angelina Jolie, Rob remains modest and grounded and he’s living proof that being nice makes you stand out in a crowd.
“One of my best teachers in LA, he worked with Tom Cruise on Mission Impossible 3, said there’s three things as an actor to get work — hard work, talent and respect. If you don’t have respect, you won’t get work,” Rob said. “By talking to people and introducing yourself, you’ll be remembered. You can’t train someone to be a nice person.”
It must be working because Rob’s worked in every movie studio in LA (he’s currently on a 01-B temporary work visa but hopes to get a green card next year).
From his apartment, Rob can see the famous Hollywood sign and he’s just a 15-minute drive to the nearest film studio. Remarkably, Rob’s introduction to LA clashed with Covid and the 2024 actors’ strikes.
His tip to surviving in Hollywood: be versatile. He produced his first feature last year and is co-producing and acting in an Aussie flick next year.
“To make it over there or at least earn enough to make a living, you have to be open to opportunities,” Rob said. “In the actors strike, I wasn’t getting as much work, so I started doing a lot of crew work and now I do a lot of art directing, I’ve done a lot of sets for movies. I worked with Brian Austin Green [Beverly Hills 90210] and I was working with Nic Cage.”
Rob’s always open to doing background work as there’s always a chance of an upgrade. In fact, it was a background role that led to a featured role in The Fabelmans, directed by Steven Spielberg.
Rob’s nothing if not tenacious. For his upcoming lead role in horror film Rush Week, he did 10 auditions to get the part. He also has a great attitude to rejections.
“It’s something I learned in the first year in the US — it’s not a rejection, it’s a selection,” Rob said. “Most casting directors want you for a reason. They want you to audition but it might be for something different. I auditioned for something and they said, ‘No, we don’t really want you for this, but we’ve got an Aussie role coming up, we think you’d be great for it.’ So I auditioned and now I’m doing that.”
Rob’s skilled in British, Irish and American accents but it’s his Aussie accent he does best (he also plays AFL for a top-of-the-league team in LA).
There’s something endearing about Rob, not just his strong work ethic and politeness but his down-to-earth nature, which perhaps small-town Canberra can take partial credit for.
Rob’s home this week to mentor students at Marist College, Budding Entertainment and Perform Australia, then back to LA to assist a producer who worked on Avatar.
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