It’s been two decades since The Devil Wears Prada strode into the cultural consciousness, Chanel boots, pursed lips and all.
As Australian audiences flock to cinemas this week, dressed in cerulean blue and garb from “the hideous skirt convention” to watch its sequel, they’ll find themselves caught in the crosshairs of Miranda Priestly and Andie Sachs’ love-hate rivalry once again.
But alongside the familiar faces of Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci, they may also spot another familiar face from closer to home: Australian actor Patrick Brammall.
Yes, we have Patrick.
Speaking at the Sydney premiere of the film on Tuesday night, Brammall spoke about how surreal he found working with Anne Hathaway.
“I mean, when she puts the Anne Hathaway eyes on you, and you’re in the scene, and she’s the one you’re looking at, that’s crazy. But what I didn’t expect was how playful she was and how just she was up for anything. It really was a dream.”
Brammall, who plays the love interest of Hathaway’s character, Andie, says the pair built a rapport over competitive games of ping-pong.
“It was day one, and we were sitting in this green room in the middle of this building in Brooklyn, and I don’t know where the hell I was. I’d only met Annie the day before, and we’re basically strangers,” he says.
“There’s a giant ping-pong table there and she wanted a game, and I genuinely didn’t think she was serious.”
“We just started playing and I was like, ‘well this is weirdly the perfect way to enter into this relationship together, because that’s what a scene is’, and I found how great she was as a scene partner.”
Brammall is perhaps best known for the Stan comedy series Colin from Accounts, which he co-created, co-wrote and co-stars in with wife Harriet Dyer.
Born and raised in Canberra, the 50-year-old has been gracing Australian screens since the early 2000s, with lead roles in television classics like Upper Middle Bogan, Offspring and Bluey.
In 2024, he was announced as the lead in AppleTV+’s upcoming crime thriller series The Dispatcher.
But this starring role in a Hollywood franchise with such cultural heft marks a significant jump in Brammall’s career, whose acting credits have thus far mainly been limited to Australia.
So far out of reach did the role feel that Brammall almost didn’t audition.
“It wasn’t self-doubt so much, it was pragmatics. When they asked me to audition, and I’m 50, I’ve been around the block, I’ve been working as an actor for many, many years, and I’ve put down a lot of auditions for a lot of big things going, ‘oh, this could be it.’ ”
“And so when that came through, I was like, ‘that’s really nice that they’re considering me’, but I genuinely didn’t have time,” he says, explaining he was tied up with another project and busy raising two young children.
“I was just like ‘at the end of the day, they’re not gonna call me back about this, so no thanks.’ ”
“History had told me that 99 per cent of things that you go for as an actor, you don’t get. And so I thought this is really lovely to be in this conversation, but I’ve got other things I’ve got to do, and it wasn’t a play, but it turned out to feel like one because they came back to me with an offer.”
Very little is known about his role in The Devil Wears Prada sequel, except that he plays Andie’s love interest.
In doing so, he follows in the footsteps of another Aussie, Simon Baker, who played the slightly sleazy journalist Christian Thompson in the first film.
While Baker had several film and TV credits to his name at home and in Hollywood prior to The Devil Wears Prada, his memorable character propelled his career to new heights, leading to jobs including the titular role of The Mentalist.
However, Brammall said he and Baker have never spoken about this shared connection.
“I’m a big fan of his work, but we never exchanged numbers about it.”
The follow-up to the 2006 film follows Andie as she returns to Runway magazine, which, still led by its stony-faced editor Miranda Priestly, is navigating a rocky media landscape.
The returning cast is joined by a host of big names including Justin Theroux, Kenneth Branagh and Lady Gaga.
The Devil Wears Prada 2 premieres in Australian cinemas on April 30
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