From Talk to Me to Leviticus, the rising Australian actor steps from breakout horror success into queer genre cinema’s next frontier
There is a special kind of excitement that comes with watching a young performer find the role that proves exactly what they are capable of.
For Australian actor Joe Bird, that moment began with Talk to Me, the internationally acclaimed hit that turned a low-budget Aussie production into one of the most talked-about horror films of recent years. But if Talk to Me announced Bird as a performer capable of holding his own inside a nightmare, his new film Leviticus showcases an actor ready to lead one.
Leviticus uses the language of the genre to explore sexuality and shame. For Bird, who plays Naim, that layered ambition was what made the script impossible to ignore.
“Leviticus is horror, but it has so many other elements,” Bird tells Oliver Hall. “It’s a drama, it’s coming-of-age, it’s a romance, it’s a film about identity, family, and intergenerational religious trauma. All of those things combined make it a living, breathing story.”
“It’s been great to see a lot of gay media coming through and breaking into the mainstream,” he says, nodding to the wave of LGBTQ+ stories finding wider audiences.
“I remember reading the script and thinking, ‘I’ve never heard of a gay horror film before.’ That immediately drew me in. That’s what you want to do as an actor: challenge yourself and push yourself.”
“It isn’t just two boys, or two girls, or a straight relationship,” he says. “It was two people looking for a connection, and that’s really all you want in a script.”
That connection depended heavily on the chemistry between Bird’s Naim and Jeremy Blewitt’s Hunter. In a film where romance and fear are so tightly wound together, the casting needed to click.
“I was flying down to Melbourne for it, and I actually bumped into Jeremy at the airport before,” he recalls. “I didn’t know who he was, and he came up to me and said, ‘I have a weird feeling you’re also going for the same thing as me.’”
The instinct proved right.
“Then we found out it was, and thought, ‘This seems like it could be the vibe.’”
Leviticus doesn’t only focus on attraction; it asks what happens when love and desire are placed under pressure by systems that seek to punish and erase them. The film draws on conversion therapy.
“What’s so great about it is that you can take so many different metaphors from it and perceive it in different ways,” he says.
“The way I perceived the conversion ritual and what happens after is a metaphor for homophobia. That is the monster,” he says.
“It’s showing that homophobia can kill people. It can genuinely affect people’s lives.”
For Bird, Leviticus also marks a major professional milestone. While Talk to Me placed him inside an ensemble and gave him an award-winning breakout moment, Leviticus asks him to carry the lead role at a time when Australian and New Zealand low-budget screen stories are receiving significant buzz. Bird is proud to be part of that wave.
“I’ve been really honoured and privileged to be part of two Australian projects that have ended up getting international distribution.”
“I saw the Kiwi film The Weed Eaters the other week; it was amazing!” he says. “Oceania is showing the rest of the world what we can do.”
That sense of regional pride sits alongside his refreshingly grounded attitude to success. When he started receiving acting award nominations and wins for Talk to Me, Bird was stunned.
“I remember being sent an email by my agent and thinking, ‘That’s really cool, but you can’t let it get to your head.’”
Asked whether he walked away from Talk to Me knowing he had done a good job, Bird is candid about the anxieties of a young performer.
“With Talk to Me, I remember having this inner critic in my head the whole time before the screening, being like, ‘You’re terrible, you’re horrible, this is going to ruin your career,’” he shares.
Finally watching it brought relief.
“After my first scene, I was like, ‘Okay, I’m happy with that.’ And I started to get emotional. I was thinking, ‘I can’t cry right now while I’m watching the movie with all my castmates,’ but it’s so exciting when you’re with the people you made it with. Because they become your second family and you get to watch the baby you made!” he tells us.
Now, with Leviticus, Bird has another cinematic baby ready to meet the world. This one is darker, more intimate and more explicitly gay. It positions him not just as another promising young actor from Australia, but as an exciting emerging global screen talent.
He has also wrapped another film, Crashed Out.
“It’s a Gen Z satirical thriller directed by Nick Annason, and I’m starring with Catherine Laga’aia, who is playing Moana in the new live-action film,” he says.
Despite the success, Bird is not desperate to abandon Australia for Hollywood, though he is open to wherever the work takes him.
“If they want me over there, that can be arranged,” he laughs.
A confident answer from a young actor who knows the work is speaking for itself.
With Leviticus, Joe Bird is helping mould the horror genre into something more intimate and queer. And in doing so, he proves that the scariest stories are often the ones that tell the truth.
Leviticus is out in cinemas now
