There’s a new Pa in town on Netflix’s adaptation of LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE, and he almost went into rugby instead of Hollywood.
“I got asked to audition for a soap opera in Australia called HOME AND AWAY,” Luke Bracey told Interview Magazine. “I had no idea what I was doing; I just tried to sound like a human being. Unbelievably, I got the job.”
Before he became the new Charles “Pa” Ingalls, the Australian actor figured he was headed somewhere else entirely.
“I thought I’d be a professional rugby player or go to university and get some degree in construction, just so I’d have something to fall back on,” Bracey said, according to Woman’s World. A friend’s father talked him into an unrelated audition, and though he didn’t land that role, he caught an agent’s eye instead.
That fluke led to HOME AND AWAY, where Bracey played troublemaker Trey Palmer from 2009 to 2010. The role was only meant to last a few months, but he racked up more than 200 episodes before it wrapped.
“My character was never intended to be on the show for longer than a few months, so I got to turn up and ruffle a lot of feathers,” Bracey said. “I went from good to bad to worse.”
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From there, his movie career took off fast. Bracey landed a part in MONTE CARLO alongside Selena Gomez, then moved through G.I. JOE: RETALIATION, THE NOVEMBER MAN, THE BEST OF ME, POINT BREAK and HACKSAW RIDGE over the next few years. He later starred in Netflix’s HOLIDATE, ELVIS and MAYBE I DO and played Inspector Henry Boxer in THE ARTFUL DODGER before landing the role that’s introducing him to a whole new audience: Pa Ingalls.
“When I first read the script, I thought the character of Pa was a really interesting man in terms of his optimism, his will to make a good life for his family and to be a nice man,” Bracey told Netflix Tudum. “I found that a really wonderful part of him.”
Movieguide® gave the LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE premiere a strong 4 out of 4 stars for entertainment quality, with a +2 family rating flagging some moderately questionable content for younger viewers, including a tense scene with wolves and a brief scuffle between two girls.
“LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE’s premiere episode is beautifully shot, written and acted, with a script that displays the real challenges the Ingalls will face,” Movieguide® wrote, pointing to the show’s strong moral worldview of family, hope, kindness and neighbors helping neighbors.
Bracey has said the appeal of the Ingalls family’s story goes well beyond the 1870s prairie setting. “What the Ingalls family goes through and the community they’re a part of is the same thing that everyone goes through in their life all the time,” he told Movieguide®. “I don’t think there’s a time period that this exists in, because I think the themes and the experiences are what everyone around the world goes through all the time.”
Audiences seem to agree. The series drew 6.4 million views in its first four days on Netflix, landing at No. 3 on the streamer’s weekly chart, and Netflix has already renewed it for a second season.
For an actor who once figured he’d end up on a rugby pitch or in a construction classroom, playing one of American literature’s most enduring fathers is a fitting turn. Bracey spent his early career playing a soap opera villain who went “from good to bad to worse.” Now he’s playing a man whose whole story is about holding his family together — and, so far, Christian audiences are along for the ride.
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