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Franko Milostnik
Master of Creative Arts (Theatre Performance) - 2004
Four years at the University of Wollongong helped turn Franko Milostnik into a very good mafia boss - and he couldn't be more grateful.
Who could blame him? After all, he’d been dreaming of a job like this for years and is delighted to have finally landed it.
In fact, it’s one of the biggest jobs he’s had in his 18-year career – as an actor.
Frank plays Ivan Lazar, the leader of a Russian mafia gang in The Strip - the new 13-episode Channel 9 television police drama set on the Gold Coast.
The Strip stars high-profile actors Aaron Jeffrey (McLeod’s Daughters) and Frankie J Holden (Underbelly), and talented newcomer Vanessa Gray as police officers based on the Gold Coast – tackling the holiday strip’s crime scene dominated by characters like Franko’s Ivan Lazar.
Franko says working on The Strip was the biggest role in his 18-year career, as he appears in seven of the 13 episodes. The series was filmed on location on the Gold Coast and at the Warner Bros studios from May to August this year.
“It was a great experience working on a really good series, in such a beautiful location with such a slick cast and crew,” he says. “The lead actors were fantastic to work with … Aaron Jeffrey was so given and able to get excited about every scene. It was great to work with them and Vanessa Gray, who was absolutely outstanding.”
Franko landed the role after being approached to audition by producers Kris Wyld and Steve Knatman, for whom he had previously worked on TV series including Wildside, White Collar Blue and East West 101.
Franko started working as an actor in 1990, when he landed a role in two episodes of the ABC Television drama GP. Over the next decade he studied acting and directing in the Sydney Drama Studio and the West Australian Film and Television Institute in Fremantle, while continuing to get steady work on TV in series like Don’t Blame Me.
However, he credits a decision in 2000 to enrol as a full-time student in UOW’s Master of Creative Arts program as a turning point in his career.
“I felt that I needed to apply an academic approach to all the knowledge and experience I had accumulated over the years, so I enrolled in the Masters course at Wollongong,” Franko said. “It was a big decision to return to study for four years, but it was the right thing to do.
“Doing the course consolidated my approach to acting, gave me a much more solid approach to my characters and made me much more comfortable as an actor,” he says. “The course encouraged me to find my personal approach to acting through study of the great masters.”
His advice to new graduates setting out on their acting careers is simple: “Find a good agent, and make sure you keep people around you.” Franko says. “ Don’t allow yourself to get isolated … (because) there will be highs and lows, and you will have a strange career path that you can’t plan at all. The important thing is to keep trying, keep going. When you persist, something will happen and someone will give you an opportunity.”