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Dion Williams lives in Echuca.
The Riverine Herald reports he plans on turning out for Stanhope when the footy season starts, lured there by his cousin Stuart Day, and is bucking for a position on the wing to make the most of his winged feet.
He works out at the Warma Fitness Centre every day – and Dion’s every day at the gym includes Saturdays and Sundays.
He is also in the process of completing his Cert III in personal training.
He is hopeless to talk to while walking down the street; he is too often distracted by waving at a mate.
He is tall (he thinks 186cm but that may be conservative) and his left arm is lit up by some colourful ink.
He is, all in all, your classic young bloke from the bush, happy in a small town, fit as a Mallee bull and at 20 the world is at his feet.
Dion will also star in one of the Nine Network's most anticipated mini-series for the year.
A story about thousands of other young men, just like Dion, who sailed from our shores in time to be pitched onto the beaches of a peninsula of which none of them had ever heard.
It was called Gallipoli.
Dion Williams has not had a day of formal acting class although he loves to be the centre of attention with family and friends – a natural comedian. At school (St Joseph’s in Echuca) he excelled at sport but if there was even the slightest trace of the thespian he kept it well hidden.
Nobody picked on the jocks and he admits today, with a beaming grin, if he had joined the school’s arty community it might have “seemed a bit girlie”.
Oh, how the worm turns.
In late 2009 the Njernda Corporation was approached by the producers of an upcoming Chris Lilley TV series called The Angry Boys.
They were looking to fill an indigenous role and corporation chairman (and Dion’s father) Kevin Williams suggested his son and one of his cousins try out for the role.
“I was only 15 and didn’t mind the trip to Melbourne, it was a day out of school,” Dion said in Echuca on Wednesday.
A day which would change his life; and maybe change it forever.
He got the gig and the roles have just kept coming.
There is, of course, a downside.
Football, his other great love, has taken a very distant back seat.
He has missed whole seasons but is hoping to change all that at Stanhope this year.
“Might be a bit down on match fitness but I reckon I am in good shape,” he beams.
The self effacing Dion is, it seems, is also the master of the understatement.
For a big guy he is lightning fast. At a talent camp in Bendigo he outstripped all comers over 100m – by a mile.
In fact he is so quick over sprint distance he is also considering entering a couple of athletics meets in Bendigo for races between 70m and 120m just to make sure he isn’t slowing down.
He needn’t worry. Long arms, long legs and all held together by long muscles and a rock-hard core, he exudes athleticism even when he is sitting down.
“I suppose every young player dreams of an AFL career, but I guess this is just the way it turned out,” he said.
“I toured South Africa with the Flying Boomerangs, played a curtain raiser at the MCG the day Buddy Franklin got his teeth knocked out and yes, I would love to have played for Collingwood (his father was on the playing list for two seasons before his passion for his art took centre stage) or Essendon.
“But I love acting, love being in front of the camera, and love learning from the other people who have been doing it for years.
“Working with people such as William McInnes and Claudia Karvan (Time of our Lives) has been so valuable; they are so generous with their time and gave me so many good tips, those little things you never know unless someone points them out, something as simple as which way you look at certain points in each scene.
“Alison Telford at the ABC was fantastic, she really helped me and got me into Time of our Lives and I worked on that for both seasons.
“After I did an episode on Redfern an agent – now my agent – called James Grierson contacted me and he has helped really lift my profile.
“He gets me to auditions, even for roles neither of us expects me to get, because he says it is good for people to see me, to get me on their radar.
“When he called me about Gallipoli he did not put me under much pressure, he just saw it as an audition experience for me.
“But then I got a call back and then called in to test for the character. A couple of months later I was on location. It was amazing.”
Dion has already enjoyed a career for which many hard-working graduates of NIDA – the National Institute of Dramatic Art (amongst its alumni can be found Cate Blanchett, Baz Luhrmann, Helen Morse, Miranda Otto, Mel Gibson and Sam Worthington) – would almost kill.
And got it by wanting to simply duck a day at school.
But his feet are firmly planted on the ground.
He remains a local boy, he is working towards a career in health and fitness but now he has had a taste he also would just about kill to become a fulltime actor.
“The funny thing, though, I can’t watch myself,” he said.
“I think I watched the first thing I did and I don’t think I have looked ever since.
“I still can’t believe I did not get sledged on the football field, maybe I will this year but I have waited so long for it I think I will probably laugh when it finally happens.
“When I was playing in Angry Boys my grandmother saw an episode and wondered if my role as Marlon was the real me,” he laughed.
“She rang my mother and asked if that was really how I behaved. She was going to come down and whack me.”
While he might not have been a keen student of his own work until now, he can’t wait for Gallipoli to air on Monday.
His family will be gathering around a barbecue and TV at his Echuca home to celebrate their Dion’s role in such a major production.
Although the number of indigenous who fought at Gallipoli is unknown, it was only a small contingent and by and large was written out of history.
Five are known to have died there, only four of those have graves.
But the link between Dion’s family and war is strong. He did not have a relative at Gallipoli but a great uncle who was one of Australia’s other legends, one of the Rats of Tobruk.
Playing Lachie in Time of our Lives was almost playing himself, a star young indigenous footballer who goes to Melbourne to play in the big time.
But playing Gallipoli had a different connection for Dion.
His character Two Bob King is an indigenous soldier (and is, Dion said, “a decent speaking role) but even as a 20-year-old he can sense the importance of the show, of the message it will convey and his pride in the work he has done.
He refused to spill the beans on what happens to his character, said the late showing reflects the drama of the series and said the director pulled no punches in the horror conveyed.
“We filmed most of it around Melbourne and it took four months from April so I have got really nervous waiting for it to go on air.
“There are 100 speaking roles in the series so I was very excited to get as good a spot as I did.
“I had to lose some weight for the show, and even when we were doing scenes in the trenches we had to get our timing right – when we pulled the triggers we had to flinch our shoulders as we were only firing blanks.
“Everything else was real though, right down to the .303s we carried, and they are pretty heavy.”
Echuca will get to judge Dion the actor at the same time as him and his family.
But it won’t change the big kid with the big grin from still waving to his mates as he walks down Hare St.
And while Dion is clearly delighted to discuss his roles to date he is emphatic he does not want to be seen as an indigenous man who acts, or an actor who plays indigenous roles.
If he is going to succeed, it will be on his terms. As Dion Williams, actor.
He has the word Waradjuri tattooed on his right wrist, and Wakaman on his left, the tribes of his father and mother.
Then laughs about all his tattoos.
“It takes an hour in makeup every day to cover my sleeve and hands but they do such a brilliant job I look down at my arm and wonder where it came from,” he laughed (again).
As he once dreamt of the AFL he can now dream of an international acting career. He’s not there yet, is even reluctant to suggest it’s on the horizon.
Right now he doesn’t even consider himself a professional actor.
But he summed it up with a quote he has acquired from a fitness trainer, but which fits him from every angle.
“To be comfortable you have to be uncomfortable.”