Coles Smith has worked in acting, sound design,
field recording, writing, and composing music. Coles Smith won critical acclaim for his performance as Tilly in
Last Cab to Darwin, and was awarded with
FCCA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in 2015. In 2021, Coles Smith was cast in
Mystery Road: Origin, a prequel to the original two series. In the prequel, Coles Smith played a younger version of detective Jay Swan, a role originated by
Aaron Pedersen. Following
Chris Brown's defection from Network 10 to the Seven Network in 2023, Coles Smith succeeded Brown as the narrator of
The Dog House Australia. Coles Smith features as narrator and interviewer in the documentary
Keeping Hope, directed by Tyson Mowarin, which examines the high rates of
suicide in Indigenous communities in
the Kimberley. The film premiered at the
Sydney Film Festival in June 2023, ahead of its airing on
NITV and
SBS Television. In the film, Coles Smith opens up about his own and his family's experiences with the impact of suicide of close friends and family members. Steve Dow of
The Guardian gave the film four out of five stars. In
2023, Coles Smith became the first Indigenous Australian actor ever to be nominated for a
Gold Logie. On 21 November 2024, it was announced that ABC had ordered a second series of
Mystery Road: Origin, with Coles Smith to reprise the role of Jay Swan. In 2025 Coles Smith narrated the ABC TV nature series "The Kimberley".
Stage acting Coles Smith has performed in several stage plays. He gave his first stage performance as a child,
Crabbing at High Tide, presented as part of the
Perth International Arts Festival in 2005. His 2016 performance in ''
The Drover's Wife'' at the
Belvoir Theatre in
Sydney earned him the
Helpmann Award for Best Male Actor in a Play in 2017. Coles Smith played a leading role opposite
Jack Charles in
ILBIJERRI Theatre Company's
Black Ties, first performed for the Sydney Festival in January 2020, then touring to
Perth,
Melbourne, and then
Wellington and
Auckland in New Zealand in February and March of that year. Under the stage name Kalaji (the
Nyikina word for "
whirlwind"), Coles Smith gave his first musical/multimedia performance, named "Night River", at the
Yirramboi arts festival in Melbourne in 2019. The work explored Nyikina country and the
Mardoowarra (aka Martuwarra, or Fitzroy River area). In December 2021, under the name Kalaji, he released an
electro-pop album of the same name.
NME reviewer Cat Woods described the music as reminiscent of Icelandic band
Sigur Rós, and overall "an atmospheric, expansive adventure in synths, instrumentals, field recordings, and treated vocals – and a meditation on themes of intergenerational wisdom and memory". Partly recorded on country and produced at Wawili Sound Studios in Broome, Coles Smith explores his relationship with
Martuwarra (the Fitzroy River catchment area) and his Nyikina culture. and one of the ten tracks is named "
Wandjina",
Narration (audio) In 2020, Coles Smith narrated an extract from the
Banjo Paterson's poem "
The Man From Snowy River" on
RN Breakfast. Coles Smith narrated the
audiobook of
Tasmanian Aboriginal author Adam Thompson's short story collection,
Born Into This (2021). In 2023 he narrated and co-produced the epic book by Greg Campbell in a 31-year collaboration with senior Law-keeper Lulu (Nyikina elder, Paddy Roe) and the Goolarabooloo people,
Total Reset: realigning with our timeless holistic blueprint for living. ==Recognition and awards==