‘It all comes from love’: Young star finds the joy in Oscar Wilde’s ‘epically progressive’ classic
With a role in the new Wolf Creek already in the bag alongside a deeply personal film project, Connor Pullinger makes his mainstage debut this month in State Theatre Company South Australia’s gender-flipping take on Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest.
When Connor Pullinger was invited to audition for State Theatre Company South Australia’s new production of The Importance of Being Earnest, he thought there had been an error.
Wilde’s famous 19th century play follows two young men, Jack and Algernon, whose embrace of a fictional alter ego – the titular “Ernest” – unravels in a farcical ride through notions of identity, class and desire. But State Theatre artistic director Petra Kalive, whose take on Earnest marks her directorial debut for the company, didn’t want him to play either.
“I truly never considered that I could play Gwendolyn or Cecily, so when I got the email to audition for Gwendolyn, I thought, is this a mistake, is it a typo?,” Pullinger tells InReview.
“Then I read the play through the eyes of Gwendolyn, and I thought, ‘Wow, this can work’
“We’re basically breathing life into Oscar Wilde’s original provocation, which is that identity and the binary is something that society insists is natural, but you know, it’s actually staged, and it becomes funnier if we’re able to look at it, look at the system, and laugh at the system, especially when people who haven’t been the authors of the joke get to finally be the authors of the joke, it just adds a layer onto the text which is already smart enough.”
And, Pullinger adds, both Gwendolyn and Cecily show a “directness and vision for their life” that is “pretty incredible. “It’s kind of 2026,” he says.
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Kalive has said her production is “not about dusting off a museum piece or forcing modern politics onto a classic, but about digging for the spark Oscar Wilde buried beneath the quips and cucumber sandwiches”.
The all-South Australian cast includes Nathan O’Keefe, Caroline Mignone, Glenda Linscott, Teddy Dunn, Anna Lindner and Pia Gillings, who also makes her professional debut. Adelaide songstress Carla Lippis, better known for her powerhouse singing performances, takes to the stage in her first acting role, playing the part of Lane. Lippis and her husband and frequent collaborator Geoff Crowther have also written the original music for the production.
“It’s epic,” Pullinger says. “I truly have no other words. Carla comes to rehearsal, and she’ll play a song, and say, ‘I just cooked this up last night’. I don’t know how that’s possible.”
Renowned local creative Kathryn Sproul has designed a lush set and costumes, with Pullinger particularly excited about his Gwendolyn outfit.
“I don’t want to give it away, but I get to wear this amazing outfit by Kathryn,” he says. “It’s super structured, super modern, very chic, but also so Victorian and so Oscar Wilde, the colours are lovely.”
Making his professional stage debut alongside a team of South Australian talent, many of whom he admired as a teenager, strikes an emotional chord for the 24-year-old actor.
“It means the world to me,” he says. “I remember being in high school and watching shows here, they had an ensemble, and they were all South Aussie actors, and it really felt that, you know, the dream was tangible, because these people are doing it.
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“Petra gave us a sort of welcome speech when we began rehearsals, and the way she just immediately got us all on the same page, made us all feel really safe, welcome, and that our opinions matter, and what we’re going to bring to the text matters, I think that’s kind of what you need, because the imposter syndrome was crazy to begin with.
“Obviously being not as experienced as the others, I was like, ‘Wow, me, really’? But Petra immediately just said, ‘we’re all here for a reason, and we’re bringing this story now is the perfect time for it, because we need this kind of wit and joy, and the play is so progressive.”
Pullinger completed his studies at Flinders Drama Centre graduating with first-class honours in acting, and made his screen debut as Oliver in Closer Productions’ AACTA Award–winning SBS miniseries The Hunting. Most recently, he appeared as Daniel in Wolf Creek: Legacy, set for an international theatrical release in 2027, and will next be seen as Zeke in ABC/BBC/Easy Tiger’s Treasure & Dirt, directed by Madeleine Gottlieb.
In a project of deep personal significance, the talented young performer was last year awarded the Helpmann Academy Fellowship Grant, to support the creation of First Suit, an original short film he wrote, co-produced and stars in, directed by Tamara Hardman.
“Essentially, it’s about the fact I was given a suit from my mum when I was 16, and I wore this suit to do all my major life ‘firsts’, so I kissed someone for the first time, I drank for the first time, all of these major milestones happened in the suit,” he says.
“So, the film shows these vignettes of these moments across this boy’s adolescence. Then, he has to wear the suit to his first funeral, which is his mum’s funeral.
“So, it’s heavy with grief and joy and love, but you can’t throw it out because that’s disrespectful to your past self. So, you keep it in your wardrobe, but you have to buy another suit because you have to keep living.”
The autobiographical work is an ode to Pullinger’s mother Mim, who sadly passed away from cancer in 2018, just before her talented young son’s career took shape.
“I booked my first acting job in 2019 and then I got into uni in 2020 and so it all sort of happened just after she passed,” he says. “But I feel like, you know, she said, ‘Follow your dreams’, and so that’s what I’m doing. I know she’d be so proud of me, but I’m so devastated that she can’t see all this fun stuff I’m doing.
“It’s brutal isn’t it? But it’s pretty amazing how in The Importance of Being Earnest rehearsal room specifically, I talked about Mum and everyone has their stories, of their people, who they’re doing it for, and who they’re channelling, and the grief that they feel, they put into their art. It’s just so inspiring.
“We’re all so similar. It all comes from love, that’s where we get our drive from. I see it in the other people, and I go, ‘Wow, I am in the right place, because all these people are talking my language’.”
The Importance of Being Earnest runs at the Dunstan Playhouse from May 8-30.
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