The Casting Guild of Australia (CGA) has announced the 11th annual membership of Rising Stars, a group of actors it believes have the potential to break out on the world stage.
This year’s list includes Claire Hughes, Ioan Saura, Joseph Zada, Lily Latorre, Roxy Mohebi, Stacey Clausen, Tanjin Crawford, Taranya Taran, Xavier Molyneux and Zoe Phillips.
Past rising stars include Millie Alcock, Eliza Scanlan, Katherine Langford, Yerin Ha, Ayesha Madden, Zoe Terakez, Olivia de Jonge, James Majew and Alexander Englund.
CGA President Thea McLeod said the Rising Stars were all great actors and pointed out that members of the guild had nominated many excellent candidates.
“The list is long, but we are truly lucky to have such extraordinary people in Australia,” she said.
“It’s always great to see our rising stars do great work here at home and then begin to step onto the international stage. Australia has a proud history of producing world-class performers and I’m honestly so excited to see this next generation grow their careers here before heading on to the world stage.”
“We are so proud of our 2025 Rising Stars and can’t wait to see the great things ahead as they continue to shine in Australia and beyond.”
Each Rising Star will be recognized in person at the CGA Awards Ceremony on November 21 at Melbourne’s Arts Center and will receive a 24-month membership to both the Casting Network and ShowCast.
The rising stars are as follows.
Claire Hughes will graduate from NIDA in 2022 and has been cast to play the lead role of Lisa in the ABC drama version of Ladies in Black, along with Debi Mazar and Miranda Otto. Following this, Claire completed filming the second season of the successful ABC series Ten Pound Poms as Birdie. In theater, she made her debut in The Old Fitz’s Sit and Scream and is currently appearing in Mary Page Marlowe opposite Susan Sarandon and Andrea Riseborough at London’s Old Vic. Hughes was an accomplished piano player and a member of the Australian Girls’ Choir. She completed a Diploma in Acting at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAPPA) before enrolling at NIDA.
Ioane Saura currently stars as Jimmy in Stan’s new medical drama The F Ward, co-starring Anna Friel and Dan Wiley, and will next be seen in the third and final season of Netflix’s Heartbreak High, the Apple TV+ series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, and Stan’s holiday special Bump: A Christmas Film. The Samoan-Australian actor made his debut as Vince on Stan’s Bump, which ran for five seasons, and has other credits in the TV series Plum, The Last King of the Cross, Preppers, Dr. Doctor, and the films The Fat and The Fall Guy.
Joseph Zada will star in the next Hunger Games movie, Sunrise of the Reaping, where he will reprise the iconic role of Haymitch Abernathy, played by Woody Harrelson. He will co-star with Glenn Close, Ralph Fiennes, Kieran Culkin, Jesse Plemons and Elle Fanning. He will soon appear in the Netflix limited series East of Eden opposite Florence Pugh, Mike Feist, and Christopher Abbott. Zada’s other credits include the Prime Video series “We Were Liars” and “Stan Original Invisible Boys.”
Lily LaTorre starred as Annie Shearer in the recent Australian feature film Runt and co-starred with Josh O’Connor in the American independent feature film Rebuilding, which premiered at Sundance in 2025. Her other credits include the film Run Rabbit Run and the Disney+ series The Clearing.
Roxy Mohebi first trained and then worked as a neonatal emergency nurse until she rediscovered her passion for performing. Her television credits include Critical Incident, Return to Paradise, Ladies in Black, Brokenwood Mysteries, The New Legend of the Monkey (season 2), Shortland Street, One Lane Bridge (season 2) and Miles of Nowhere, for which she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the 2024 NZ Television Awards. In film, he has appeared in Give Me Babies, The Moon Is Upside Down, and Head South. Mohebi recently finished filming Binge’s upcoming limited series “Run” with George Mason and Keiynan Lonsdale and will next be seen in Stan series “He Had It Coming.”
Alongside A-list talent, Stacey Clausen just finished playing a supporting role in an as-yet-unannounced Netflix feature film, is starring in an upcoming unannounced Sony Pictures film, and is part of the cast of an upcoming Causeway Films feature film. Clausen was one of the leaders of Crazy Fun Park and also had roles in True Spirit, Scrubland, and High Country. He was a finalist in the 2024 AACTA Young Stars casting call.
WAPAA alum Tanzine Crawford broke out playing Katharine Hahn’s daughter in the 2023 Hulu/Hello Sunshine production Tiny Beautiful Things. In 2024, he starred in the Australian TV series Swift Street, and last June it was announced that he would star in HBO’s Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, based on the novella by George R.R. Martin. She just finished production on the series “Shelly’s Country,” executive produced by Jerry Bruckheimer.
Taranya Taran will next be seen alongside Henry Cavill, Rita Ora, Sterling K. Brown and Alba Baptista in Amazon MGM Studios’ feature film adaptation of the hit animated series Voltron. Her other credits include the Stan series Year Of, Apple TV’s thriller drama series Shantaram, Paramount+’s More Than This, ABC’s Why Are You Like This and Mustangs FC.
Xavier Molyneux began his on-screen career in the coming-of-age drama Take My Hand and starred for two years as Byron Stone in Neighbors. His big break came when he landed the lead role in the historical blockbuster Bloodaxe, produced by Amazon and MGM Studios, which is currently being filmed in Ireland. Xavier is represented by Anthony Kidd at Benchmark Creative Management in Australia, and in the US, he is managed by The Rose Group and agented by WME.
Zoe Phillips will soon star alongside Florence Pugh and Martha Plimpton in the Netflix series East of Eden, and will play the lead role in the film My Sister Charlotte. Phillips trained at NIDA, the Australian Screen Actors Association, and the International Film and Television Studio, and studied a variety of methods and devices, including Meisner training and dialect work.
