Over 25 years, UCRH has seen thousands of students, researchers and health professionals come through the doors. A member of the Hemsworth clan wasn’t on anyone’s bingo card.
Yet for a few days in 2021, the campus swapped its usual routine for something a little more cinematic, becoming a filming location for Bosch & Rockit, the Australian coming-of-age film starring Luke Hemsworth which was filmed across the beaches and hinterland of the NSW north coast. The story follows 13-year-old Rockit and his father Bosch as what begins as a carefree surf adventure slowly reveals itself to be something far more complicated.
The production needed a hospital setting, and someone pointed them in our direction, knowing our Simulation Centre would be a perfect stand-in. Suddenly, camera crews, lighting rigs and film trailers were rolling in, transforming familiar teaching spaces into a movie set.
Staff member Tara Bayles found herself unexpectedly caught up in the action.
When a call went out for extras, she and colleague Aimmee Wadell volunteered, expecting to lend a hand for a few hours. Instead, they spent most of the day watching the machinery of filmmaking in motion while waiting for their own brief moment on screen. Tara was cast as a nurse, a role that involved multiple takes and meticulous direction.
“Walk slower, walk faster,” she recalled with a laugh.
In the finished film, her appearance lasts mere seconds, while Aimmee didn’t make it at all!
The real attraction, Tara says, was seeing what happens behind the scenes.
Crew members filled the building. Scenes were shot and reshot. Actors moved in and out of view. One of UCRH’s ageing simulation manikins even scored a small but memorable role in the story.
“It was pretty wild,” Tara said. “Seeing how much goes into it, like how many crew members they need to actually do things.”
The adventure did not end there. Tara and a UCRH colleague – another Amy, Amy Burgess – were later invited to the film’s premiere on the Gold Coast, trading their workday clothes for red-carpet outfits before heading back to work the next morning.
Looking back, Tara is less impressed by her five seconds of screen time than by the fact it happened at all.
“It’s always something different in this place,” she said. “You never know what’s going to happen.”
One day it’s students, simulation training and rural health education. The next, there are cameras in the corridors, a Hemsworth on the call sheet, and a manikin preparing for its moment in the spotlight.
