Australian actor Luke Hemsworth has joined the next season of award-winning show Deadloch, playing a crocodile-wrangling Northern Territory icon.

Westworld actor Hemsworth, 44, is playing a Steve Irwin-style, larger-than-life character who owns Jason Wade’s Land of Crocs and Other Animals’ Wildlife Park, and who runs Jason Wade’s Adventures Down Under.

“We’re feeling very happy with ourselves about this because he’s perfect,” say Deadloch‘s executive producers and writers Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan (The Katering Show).

“It’s perfect casting.”

The two Kates, who emerged in 2015 with their comedy cooking show followed by parodying breakfast TV with Get Krack!n on the ABC, based the second series of the murder mystery series in the Northern Territory.

“We are so excited to head to the Top End for a sticky, sweaty and filthy season two,” they said.

Back in action

Hemsworth will be a shoo-in with the crocs, no stranger to action, comedy and good old-fashioned thrillers, bringing Hollywood gravitas to the production.

Just three months ago, he starred alongside The Shawshank Redemption’s Morgan Freeman, playing a former special forces soldier in Gunner.

In February, with a budget of $25 million, he worked with brother Liam and Russell Crowe in Land of Bad, filmed on the Gold Coast hinterland.

The oldest of the Byron Bay-based Hemsworths, his younger brothers are Chris (Furiosa, Thor, Extraction) and Liam (The Hunger Games).

Luke is set to star next in The Terminal List: Dark Wolf, an action TV series about CIA operatives.

“Luke Hemsworth does his action family proud and deploys all the right amount of bravado and butt kicking [in Gunner],” wrote actionflix.com in a recent review.

Award-winning acclaim

Lauded by critics and legions of fans in Australia and around the world, Deadloch became a bona fide breakout hit, reaching the Top 10 TV shows in more than 165 countries and territories on Prime Video including the US, UK and Canada.

The series won five AACTA Awards earlier this year including best acting in a comedy for Kate Box, and best screenplay in television for Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan, and scored three nominations in this year’s Logie Awards.

It’s unlikely Luke Hemsworth has played a croc wrestler before, but he’s definitely ready to deliver more action in Deadloch. Photo: Prime Video

‘Full steam ahead’

We first met the female detectives, local senior sergeant Dulcie Collins, (Kate Box, Fires, Wentworth) and the blow-in from Darwin, senior investigator Eddie Redcliffe (Madeleine Sami, The Breaker Upperers) in the first series set in Tasmania.

They return, along with Nina Oyama and Alicia Gardiner in lead roles, with Hemsworth and 16 new support cast including Steve Bisley (The Great Gatsby, Mystery Road: Origin, Mad Max) and Shari Sebbens (The Sapphires, Thor: Love and Thunder and The Office).

In season two, Collins and Redcliffe are in Darwin investigating the death of Redcliffe’s former policing partner, Bushy. But when the body of a Top End icon is discovered in a remote town, they are flung into a sweatier, stickier investigation.

“It’s full steam ahead on Deadloch season two,” says Amazon MGM Studios head of Australian original productions, Sarah Christie.

“[The two Kates] have expertly crafted a gripping new mystery with their signature satirical comedy, but this time things are heating up in the Top End.

“We’re thrilled to welcome our fantastic new cast.”