Damian Callinan
Damian Callinan is a multi award-winning comedian, actor & writer. He is best known to TV/film audiences for his roles on Skithouse, Before The Game & Backyard Ashes & regular guest appearances on shows such as Spicks and Specks & Melbourne Comedy Festival Gala.
More recently, his multiples roles as lead actor, screenwriter & co-producer on The Merger have really expanded his profile and reputation. The feature film is based on Damian’s multi award winning one-man show of the same name & also stars Kate Mulvany, John Howard, Fayssal Bazzi, Penny Cook & Nick Cody. Since it’s theatrical release in late 2018, the film has been consistently picking up awards & nominations including the Cinema Australia Audience Award, two AACTA nominations & was also shortlisted for the coveted Cinefest Oz Prize. Most recently the film won two major awards at the SR Film Festival in New York & received an astonishing ten nominations at the OzFlix Independent Film Awards taking out three gongs: Best Film, Best Screenplay & Best Emerging Talent. As well as being the Gala Centrepiece at the Melbourne International Film Festival, the film was included in the Global Migration Film Festival, London Migration Film Festival, & at the behest of UNHCR was played in schools across Serbia The Merger was also invited to feature at the Glasgow & Dublin Film Festivals in early 2019 with the film’s production team being invited to tour Ireland & Scotland with the film. Whilst In Europe, Callinan also conducted an Australian Embassy Hosted Tour organised by DFAT. The film has already been seen in over 20 countries and has just been released in the USA by Amazon’s Indieflix & in the UK under the title Extra Time by Signature Films. Closer to the home the film was released on Netflix in late December 2020, where it achieved Top 10 status within a week. This second life has seen the film reach a much wider audience.
An ex-drama teacher, Callinan has come a long way since taking long service leave to ‘give it a crack.’ A three time Most Outstanding Show Award nominee at the Melbourne international Comedy Festival [The Merger, Sportsman’s Night, Proxy Heroes], he has been prolific in his output of live shows racking up awards & nominations like parking fines. These include Spaznuts [Piece Of Wood Comedians Choice Award at MICF] Proxy Heroes [Barry nomination] The Cave the Rave [ABN Amro Edinburgh Foreign Exchange Award] Sportsman’s Night [Melbourne Fringe Best Comedy] & The Lost WWW1 Diary [Nominated Best Comedy @ Perth Fringe & Victorian VCE Playlist 2017 & 2020]
His most recent festival & regional arts funded, national touring shows, include his Lindy Hop inspired Swing Man [Nominated Best Comedy @ Perth Fringe 2018]; his smash hit take down of wine snobbery with Paul Calleja, The Wine Bluffs [2019] & his critically acclaimed titular role in Kieran Carroll’s Newk: The John Newcombe Story [2019-2020]
Callinan completed the world premiere seasons of The Wine Bluffs – Decanted at Adelaide Fringe & Melbourne International Comedy Festival & a Regional Arts Victoria tour of The Merger [stage show] with the play being included on the 2021 VCE Playlist. Following highly successful outreach tours in February & April 2021 Damian continued touring into drought, flood & fire regions throughout 2021 with the National Recovery & Resilience Agency.
In 2021 he released his young reader book Weird School published by Penguin Random, a new season of his cult hit Bodgy Creek Community Podcast. He also had guest appearances on the ABCTV comedy series, Rosehaven & Why Are You Like This? And a lead ensemble role in The Emu Wars, a Screen Australia funded web series for Hot Dad.
