Joel Hogan represents part of the new wave of successful young actors reaching their mark via a variety of platforms and mediums. In the past year alone, the trained thespian has served as an official juror for the Annual Los Angeles Diversity Film Festival (LADFF), and appeared in a lead role in the hit mockumentary series Unverified for Funny Or Die, produced by Will Ferrell, as well as a critical role in long-running Channel Seven hit show, Home and Away.

These accomplishments, all on top of his other leading acting roles around the world, mark what Joel calls “the result of many years of hard work and determination.”

But before we get to that, Joel sits down with us to talk about how his career has reached such awesome heights. “I’ve been extremely blessed.”

After moving to Los Angeles to feature as the lead of innovative filmmaker Marcus Mizelle’s film “Actor for Hire”, opposite CSI actor JT Alexander, Joel was invited to attend numerous award ceremonies in celebration of “Actor for Hire’s” success. Additionally, he received an award for his acting work from the Orlando Film Festival for his role in the film. The festivals, which also included the Laugh or Die Comedy Fest, and HollyShorts Film Festival (which qualified the project for Oscar-contention), brought Joel in direct contact with key decision makers in Hollywood.

“Many people I met along the way were already familiar with my work, so meeting these power players face-to-face I think just gave a more relatable face to my name.” Some of that work with which those power players were familiar include Joel’s leading role in “Dirty Dancing: The Time of your Life,” which brought him worldwide fame to millions of viewers, and the title role in feature “Travis Jenkins.”

Prior to this, Joel enjoyed starring roles in other Australian films like “Bush Boys.” Since its release “Bush Boys” has been continually screened to audiences worldwide and is well known for selling over 50,000 copies in its first 2 months of release – a significant figure in the Australian entertainment industry. The film’s fan base stems from Mr Hogan’s continued success and high profile in other film productions like Actor for Hire and Home and Away, which screen around the world including the United Kingdom where Home and Away is the highest rated show. 1500 Steps has enjoyed similar levels of extraordinary success, reaching millions of viewers around the world through distribution on Amazon Prime.

Those roles in part attracted the people behind the LADFF, a world-renowned film festival helmed by industry leaders Hollis McLachlan and Sonja Mereu (producer at Flathead Films), to invite Joel to be a judge for their slate of films. Sonja explained that Joel’s vote “specializ[ed] in acting performance and storytelling.”

Joel elaborates on his experience judging at the LADFF. “It was really fun and inspiring – it felt like such an honour to have my opinion about these films valued. One of the films I awarded, For Better, For Worse has gone on to win the Casablanca Award for Best Drama at the Humphrey Bogart Film Festival in Florida, as well as the Audience Choice Award at the DC Shorts film festival.”

Festival founders explained to our editors that judges are appointed based on their accomplishments, and strong standing with respect to a social cause. Joel, they explained, was appointed because of his wealth of acting experience, his position as an extraordinarily successful foreign actor, and his diverse talents across acting, singing and dancing. So well received was Joel’s service, he has since been invited to also judge at the Los Angeles Film Awards, the Actor Awards Los Angeles and Top Shorts, the world’s leading online film festival.

But judging films is not entirely what has kept Joel occupied recently. In fact, he’s been busy with a slew of acting and industry projects that have reinforced his position as a trailblazer in entertainment. Impressively, he’s been featured on Access Hollywood as part of his role for the Lionsgate hit, “Open Water 3.” Coming up? He notably stars in a leading role in the US films Newave and Caged, as well as the lead role of Simon in the feature film “C.A.M” opposite “Pirates of the Caribbean” actor, Rupert Raineri. “Rupert was fantastic to work with,” Joel explains. “It’s always nice to share screen-time with people who are working hard, and aren’t distracted by the big-budget nature of the project.”

Joel adds, “We’re just there to tell a good story.”

Showing off his talent for exploring a wide range of genres, Joel moved onto playing the lead role of Derek (also spelled Derequé in a hilarious plot point) in the hit mockumentary series, “Unverified.” Distributed by the comedy powerhouse Funny Or Die, from founders Will Ferrell and Adam McKay (“The Big Short”), “Unverified” found awards success at the Accolade Global Film Festival, was given glowing reviews by TubeFilter and Film Ink among others, and co-starred Alex Cubis (“Mako Mermaids”), Courtney Dlugos (“South Beach”) and Landon Merrell (the upcoming “Dumplin’ with Jennifer Aniston).

Up next for the busy Australian?

“I’ve got a number of big film projects lined up, one of which is a collaboration with the award winning director David Tracy. David, alongside his mentor, David S. Goyer, the writer of “Batman Begins”, “Blade”, “Man Of Steel”, have been developing a film for me to star in for the last two years. I must admit, to say I am excited to work with these two influential Hollywood players would be a great understatement.”