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Four talent categories at the Logie Awards

With so many talent award categories, it's not surprising that even the Logies is getting itself all in a tangle.

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With no less than 4 categories now, the Logie Awards seems to be a bit confused about its own awards for new talent.

It recently announced the Graham Kennedy Award for Most Outstanding Newcomer has been renamed The Graham Kennedy Breakthrough Star Of Tomorrow whilst adding Most Outstanding Newcomer Actor and Actress as 2 further categories. The public voted Best New Talent category also remains.

All but the latter will be announced ahead of the event at the nominations event on April 3rd (previously announced as March 20).

The Graham Kennedy Award for Most Outstanding Newcomer will now be awarded to an actor or actress aged 18 years or younger who had their first major role on any Australian production in 2015.

That is at odds with a statement today that “previous recipients of the award include Firass Dirani, Matt Preston, Jessica Marais, Emma Lung and Chris Lilley. In 2015, Miranda Tapsell won for her leading role in Love Child (Nine Network).”

These performers won the Graham Kennedy Award for Most Outstanding Newcomer, not a “star of tomorrow” -and were not awarded when they were under the age of 18 (they wish!).

It also means any new presenters or non-acting talent are now only eligible for the public-voted Best New Talent -all three of the jury-voted categories are reserved for actors and actresses only (it previously awarded one to Matt Preston).

Meanwhile Ashleigh Brewer and Damon Herriman, have been named as industry judges of the Graham Kennedy Breakthrough Star Of Tomorrow Award. Both have been selected following recent US successes including The Bold and the Beautiful and Flesh & Bone.

“I am so excited and really honoured to be a judge for the TV Week Logies Graham Kennedy Breakthrough Star Of Tomorrow Award,” said Brewer. “It’s so nice to see the high calibre of acting talent continuing to come out of Australia. I wish we could have awarded everyone!”

“I had a few Logie nominations and didn’t win any of them, but it’s a nice feeling to be in a position to give back and judge the new talent,” Damon Herriman added.

“I still spend half a year in Australia and like to keep my eye on who is working in our industry,” Damon adds. “There are some incredibly talented young actors that I looked at for this award. Any one of them would be deserving. So, as frustrating as it was to choose just one, it was a nice position to be spoilt for choice.”

Herriman also recalled attending the Logie Awards in the 1980s, when he starred in The Sullivans.

“Even though I was on a show, I was also a fan,” he recalls. “I couldn’t believe I was walking around that room at 12 or 13 years of age, meeting and getting autographs with all the people I loved in shows like Cop Shop and Prisoner!”

“We are proud supporters of new TV talent,” TV Week publisher Jayne Ferguson says. “For years we’ve highlighted talent that have gone on to become some of the industry’s biggest and brightest stars.

“I’d also like to thank Ashleigh and Damon for being our celebrity judges of The Graham Kennedy Breakthrough Star Of Tomorrow Award – it’s great to have them on board, as they continue to blaze a trail all over the world.”

16 Responses

  1. The winners of these New Talent awards are to be revealed in under 3 weeks time, and no nomination list have been announced yet? That’s odd……!

  2. Why is an award named after Graham Kennedy being restricted only to actors? Kennedy’s work was more about comedy and light entertainment. He did do acting but it was only a small component of his much greater career.

    It’s like they’ve changed the parameters of the award to pretty much guarantee a win for Home And Away. I love TV Week but their constant plugging for the soap is tiresome. I see this week’s magazine is yet another Home And Away cover.

  3. We don’t need four New Talent Awards. Surely two are more than enough (one public voted and one jury voted awards).

    On one positive though, at least the three jury voted awards are to be held earlier. Could the Logies end up having other smaller awards be announced at another earlier date? Like what the Emmys do with their Daytime Emmys and Primetime Emmys. Even the AACTA Awards have a Luncheon Awards to give out smaller awards, and then have the big one.

  4. This all sounds most confusing hope the presenters get it right on the night, but as I don’t watch the Logies as it is the same old thing over and over again and mostly the same people being nominated it doesn’t concern me, there would have to be more interesting things to watch as we now have quite a few free to air channels.

  5. I knew this was going to end up in a complete mess when they started renaming the awards and mucking around with categories. This goes for all the “Most Popular” being renamed “Best” sounding similar to “Most Outstanding” and you have a long history of “Most Popular” award winners.

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