Guy Sebastian's surprising new career move

Guy Sebastian has announced his surprising new career move, just weeks after revealing he would be leaving his long-held judges role on The Voice Australia. 

After spending six seasons on the singing program, Sebastian is set to make a carer pivot into films, as he will make his big-screen debut later this year. 

Sebastian will appear in Hindi Vindi: an Australian indie film about a teen musician named Kabir, portrayed by Mihir Ahuja, who is trying to bridge a family generation gap through song.

The Australian Idol winner was originally approached to just write an original song for the movie, before producers to ask him to take on the acting role of James, the father of the teenage singer.

On Thursday, Sebastian was asked on Sunrise about the best part of working on the new film.

“Working with great actors — in the film there is Nina Gunter, who has been in 180 Bollywood movies, and the actor who plays my son in the film as well — absorbing the craft,” Sebastian said

“I am comfortable in the music world. I can sit in my studio knowing I have done my 10,000 hours but having actor friends and seeing how seriously they take the craft, I knew I was venturing into a world that I needed to pull something out from somewhere."

“It is not the hat that I wear all the time. That was good, watching them and absorbing them in being able to turn on a dime and the emotion and that is the biggest thing I took away, how much is involved in bringing a character to life.”

Sebastian spoke candidly about delving into his own ancestral roots for the role, tapping into his Malaysian and Sri Lankan Tamil heritage. 

“I moved to Australia when I was six years old or something,” he said.

“There is a lot in this movie that I could draw on personally, my mum is from India and she had a pretty tough life. She was orphaned fairly young. Her story parallels that of my wife in the film."

“My character gets married and takes her away from her family and that is kind of what happened to my mum. At 19 she moved away from her family, so there is a lot to tap into."

“The accent, it actually came naturally because I generally soften my accent. When I am around my older aunties, you can’t be very Australian because they don’t know what you’re saying.”

When asked if Sebastian thought acting would be a new career path for him, he responded, “I don’t know.”

“Originally, I was just writing the music — I would be the singing voice of the character of my son — and it changed into me writing some songs for the film and then weirdly they saw a film clip where I played this ’70s porn star detective."

“They saw that, and they were like ... ‘You are quite natural on camera, can you try out for the role?’ And now I am in it.”

Sebastian has also written an original song, titled Made of Heart, for the film. 

Image credits: Sunrise