Patrick Brammall Leads Australian Thriller ‘Last Seen’ Ahead of Global Apple TV Premiere

Patrick Brammall is swapping comedy for something considerably darker, leading the new Australian thriller Last Seenahead of its global premiere on Apple TV this week.

The six-part series, set and filmed in Victoria, will debut globally on Wednesday, Sept. 9 with its first two episodes, before rolling out weekly through Oct. 7.

Brammall stars as Ian Ridley, a former police detective whose life was shattered when his young daughter Maggie disappeared without a trace 11 years earlier.

Now working as a police dispatcher, Ridley has never accepted that his daughter is gone.

That conviction is reignited when he receives a distress call from a teenage girl and becomes convinced the voice on the other end belongs to Maggie, sending him on an increasingly desperate search to find her.

The series marks a dramatic change of pace for Brammall, who has most recently become internationally recognised through Colin From Accounts, the Australian comedy he created and stars in alongside Harriet Dyer.

His growing international profile has also included roles in Evil and the upcoming The Devil Wears Prada 2.

Last Seen, however, keeps the Australian actor firmly on home soil.

The series has assembled an extensive local cast around Brammall, including Dune: Prophecy actor Brendan Cowell, Daniel Henshall, Jessica Wren and Zahra Newman.

British actor Maxine Peake also stars, while newcomer Chloe Jean Lourdes joins the ensemble.

Adapted from Ryan David Jahn’s novel The Dispatcher, the series was written and executive produced by Kris Mrksa.

German filmmaker Christian Schwochow, whose credits include The Crown and Munich: The Edge of War, directs and executive produces the series.

Australian producer Joanna Werner, whose credits include The Newsreader, Riot and Clickbait, also serves as an executive producer through Werner Film Productions.

The production adds another internationally distributed drama to Victoria’s recent screen output, with an Australian cast and local production reaching audiences simultaneously around the world through a major streaming platform.

For Brammall, it also arrives amid an increasingly international stage of his career.

After finding global audiences by mining the awkwardness of relationships in Colin From Accounts, Last Seen gives the actor a considerably different proposition: a father driven by the possibility that the daughter he lost more than a decade earlier might still be alive.

Last Seen premieres globally on Apple TV on Wednesday, Sept. 9.