Last year, when Luke Van Os got an audition for Home And Away, he didn’t have to seek far for tips on how to approach the situation.
His cousin, Marvel’s Thor, Chris Hemsworth, was more than eager to mentor the newest member of the Hemsworth acting dynasty.
“When I was coming down to the last chemistry tests and meeting the producers, I called him, like ‘Dude, I’m really nervous. Have you got any advice?’ ” Van Os says.
“He said, ‘Simply be prepared,’ so the night before we Zoomed and just ran the lines and experimented with the situations so that when I went on Zoom with the producers the next day, I was as prepared as I could be.”
After a few months, Van Os, who plays nice-guy paramedic Xander Delaney, the newly found half-brother of nurse Jasmine (Sam Frost), has become a Summer Bay regular, just like Hemsworth did when he portrayed Kim Hyde from 2004 to 2007.
Van Os, 24, is 14 years younger than Hemsworth, yet he recalls watching him on Home And Away on a daily basis.
“I grew up watching Chris on this exact show,” he says. “And now I’m doing it myself. It’s just bizarre.”
Hemsworth’s mother Leonie and Van Os’ father Robert are siblings, and Van Os claims he was always the “annoying little cousin,” following in the footsteps of his older siblings and the Hemsworth brothers, Chris, Luke, 41, of Westworld, and Liam, 32, of The Hunger Games and, more recently, The Most Dangerous Game.
Van Os claims that seeing his cousins achieve international success on both small and large screens inspired him to pursue his own acting career.
“Since I was really young, I loved films and cinema. I was that kid that, you know, that would dress up and do plays for mum and dad and with my siblings,” he says.
“But It was really only seeing my cousins actually come through and do acting that made me think, ‘Wow, this is possible. This can be achieved’. And I was fortunate to see the amount of effort and hard work that they put in so I knew it was going to be an uphill battle.”
Van Os isn’t a newcomer to the game. He’s been auditioning for eight or nine years and has been in small roles on the television shows Bloom and Glitch, as well as acting in a number of short and indie films, including Banana Split, for which he won the best actor award at the Independent Short Awards.
“But (Home And Away) is definitely, absolutely, nothing compared to what I’ve done before,” he says. “And I think, if I hadn’t seen how hard my cousins had worked, I probably might have given up years ago. The hardest part about this industry is just being resilient and hanging in there.”
The Hemsworth brothers’ assistance, he claims, has been crucial.
“I consider myself fortunate to have been able to seek their advice and direction, and they’ve been quite helpful,” he says.
“It’s been a big help. I definitely don’t compare myself to them but if other people do that doesn’t really bother me. It’s just is what it is.”
Van Os adds he hasn’t considered following in his relatives’ footsteps and going to Hollywood because his time on Home And Away is just getting started.
“I mean, for so long, all I’ve wanted to be able to do is work as an actor, pay my bills and live. And now that I’m doing that I’m just enjoying that,” he says. “It’s too soon to think about anything like that.”
He’s having a great time at Summer Bay.
“I’ve been fortunate to land one of the best jobs you can as an actor. Most acting jobs are a couple of weeks or a couple of months, so to have something that’s more full-time is really a dream,” Van Os says.
“I’m just trying to enjoy that to the best I can here and ride the wave and who knows what the future holds. When I’m standing on that beach, I’m like, ‘Am I even at work?’ ”
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