Craig Anderson (actor)

Craig Anderson is an Australian director, producer and actor best known for his comedic turns in the Australian television series' Double the Fist, Review with Myles Barlow, Laid, and award-winning short films Life in a Datsun, Demon Datsun, and Life in a Volkswagen. He directed the horror feature film Red Christmas.

Anderson is a physical media enthusiast and notably has an VHS collection with over 8500 tapes.

Early life

Anderson grew up in St Clair, New South Wales, a suburb of Western Sydney.

Anderson has a First Class Honors in Performance and Theory from the University of Western Sydney.

Career

Anderson first gained success as a filmmaker in 1999, when he collaborated with university friend Brian Moses to create the short film Life in a Datsun. The short was screened at the Tropfest and St Kilda Film Festival to great acclaim. In 2000, they followed it up with Life in a Volkswagen.

The success of Anderson's short films with Moses lead to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation commissioning their late night TV series Double the Fist. The show is a satire of lifestyle television and features the characters pursuing the "most extreme lifestyle choices they can make". Anderson was frustrated with representation on Australian television and wanted the show to be "lower-class people having cool fantasies and action adventures". In a shock upset, the series beat Kath & Kim to win the 2004 Australian Film Institute award for best comedy series. The series returned for a second season in 2008.

In 2008, Anderson also featured in three episodes of the ABC TV show Review With Myles Barlow. Anderson served as associate producer and first assistant director on the series 

In 2013, Anderson was the subject of a six-part Observational Documentary series Next Stop Hollywood, which followed him around Hollywood during pilot series. In 2014, he shared directing duties on Australia's first Indigenous sketch Comedy series Black Comedy. Anderson and fellow director Bec Cole won the AACTA award for Best Direction in TV Light Entertainment or Reality Series for the series. 

Between directing television projects, in 2016, Anderson directed his first feature film, Red Christmas. The film was inspired by Tony Kaye's exploration of abortion in Lake of Fire. Gary Doust's documentary Horror Movie: A Low Budget Nightmare depicts Anderson's journey creating the film.

In 2023, Anderson started an analytical film podcast called Film Versus Film with Bruce and Herschel Isaacs from The University of Sydney. The hosts compare two wildly different films each episode, in an effort to understand cinematic trends and what defines iconic films. The first season also features a series of reflections on what media influenced them growing up in Western Sydney working-class families during the late 80s and early 90s.

Filmography

Actor
Life in a Datsun (short 1999)
Life in a Volkswagen (short 2000)
Bootmen (2000)
Video Dare (TV series 2000)
Double the Fist (TV series 2004–2008)
Miscast (short 2010)
Charity Hurts (video 2010)
Review with Myles Barlow (TV series 2008–2010)
Laid (TV series 2011)
Bernie (Web series 2011)
Late Night Angel Weenie Baby (Web series 2011)
Dating Emergency 101 (Web series 2011)
Next Stop Hollywood (Documentary 2013)
The Moodys (TV series 2014)
Black Comedy (TV series 2014)
Maximum Choppage (TV Series 2015)
Miso Hungry (Documentary 2015)
Tay Man (Tropfest Short 2016)
The Lost Tapes (TV Mini Series 2017)
The Moth Effect (TV Mini Series 2021)

Director
Life in a Datsun (short 1999)
Life in a Volkswagen (short 2000)
Double the Fist (TV series 2004–2008)
Black Comedy (TV Series 2014)
How Not to Behave (TV Series 2015)
Red Christmas (2016)
The Moth Effect (TV Mini Series 2021)
History Bites Back (Documentary 2021)
We Interrupt This Broadcast (TV series) (TV Series 2023)

References

External links 
 
 
 Craig Anderson on The Grave Plot Podcast
 Film Versus Film Podcast

Australian male television actors
Living people
Place of birth missing (living people)
Western Sydney University alumni
1978 births