From treading the boards on Tasmanian stages as a teenager — via starring in hit television series in New York — actor Toby Leonard Moore is back in the state he used to call home.
Leonard Moore is the co-star of Bay of Fires, a new eight-part television drama described as a darkly comedic crime series, set on Tasmania's rugged west coast.
"It's been great to come back to my roots," he said.
"I grew up in Tassie, I never thought I'd have the opportunity to shoot anything here, I've been away for a long time so it's been great to come back."
Leonard Moore lives in New York City, but went to high school and university in Hobart and performed in local theatre productions during that time.
"I love that Tassie's finally getting discovered on camera because you point a camera anywhere and that's a shot, it's beautiful," he said.
"We've been staying in Queenstown, meeting the locals, trying to support local industry, you sort of tap into that energy because these are the characters that we're playing on camera."
Bay of Fires tells the story of single mother Stella Heikkinen (Marta Dusseldorp), who finds herself in a small community where simmering feuds, crime and even murder, are rife.
Marta Dusseldorp, who also co-created the show, hand-picked the west coast landscape as the backdrop for the series.
"I just knew this was the home for this show from the first time I laid eyes on it," she said.
"It's surprising, unique, untouched, poetic, brutal.
"It makes every moment authentic and it's a place that some people have seen but not many, so I'm really hoping to encourage people to get over to the west coast of Tasmania and have a look."
Producing a TV show in such a remote location does throw up challenges, especially managing the logistics of getting the cast, crew and equipment to an isolated region without a major airport or shipping terminal.
"When I went to the Tasmanian government to talk to them about that and encourage this idea of a regional grant to allow us to come this far out — because there are major costs associated with that — and certainly they understood that straight away and said yes," Dusseldorp said.
"Their support for this show is what will be the legacy for other shows to come, that you have to find that little bit extra to do it because it's not a metropolitan town.
"But regional areas are so important, they're the heart and soul of this country and we'd be foolish to ignore them."
Show business helping local business
The influx of people to the small towns of Queenstown, Strahan and Zeehan has been a boon for local businesses through the usually quiet winter months.
Queenstown pizza restaurant owner Darren said it had been his first profitable winter.
"It's been good for the economy, it's been good for jobs," he said.
"I've been talking to other business owners and they're pretty happy with what's been going down."
Trish Gillie owns the op shop in Zeehan.
"It's just good to have something different in the town and the crew are friendly," she said.
"Most [local] people think it's good."
West Coast Mayor Shane Pitt said the production, along with a couple of others shot locally, had opened a new avenue for the region.
"We're now seen as a major area for filming in Tasmania and it certainly fits into this area, there's some tremendous scenery," he said.
"We've never seen this amount of people in the community, the accommodation places are all filled up and it's very buoyant at the moment around here."
The production has also provided three months of full-time employment for Tasmanian screen professionals, with close to half of the Bay of Fires 138-member crew from the state.
That came straight after months of filming in Tasmania for another television series, Deadloch.
Alex Sangston, the executive manager of the state government division Screen Tasmania, said it had been an extraordinary year of production for Tasmania.
"So our crews have been in production and full-time employment for pretty much all of the year, it's going to be a record year of production for Screen Tasmania and for the state as a whole," he said.
"There are a number of shows in development and a couple of feature projects up and coming so it's been a very busy eight or nine months and it's not going to slow down for the next six or so."
Locals taking on extra opportunities
Half of the 111-strong cast of Bay of Fires are also Tasmanian, mostly extras from the local towns.
Georgia Sherriff recently moved to Zeehan.
"I've been trying to get out and do something a bit different, I wanted to be able to do something out in the community so this is a great opportunity," she said.
"I really love Australian TV shows, especially Tasmanian ones — Rosehaven and the like — so doing a local one and showing this area is really good."
Tullah resident Thomas Bailey said he had enjoyed the opportunity to meet people from other west coast towns.
"A lot of us come from the local towns, be it Rosebery or Queenstown or Zeehan or I'm from Tullah," he said.
"They're pretty quiet towns, people know each other but I don't think there's that much cross-pollination.
"As an extra, you spend a lot of time sitting around, not on set so it's been a really good opportunity to meet people, it's been nice to interact with people who wouldn't necessarily be in your social circle."
Lee Brient has been driving two-and-a-half hours from Launceston for her scenes.
"I really enjoy it, the main reason I did it was just to have something different in my life," she said.
"It's worth doing just to be a part of something that's going to persevere for a while.
"The fact that they're using locals is fantastic, we've got so much talent in this state."
Bay of Fires will air on ABC TV and ABC iview next year.
