Keiynan Lonsdale Returns To The Role That Launched His Career in 'Dance Academy: The Movie'

"There are a lot of bad dance movies," Keiynan Lonsdale admits with a grin. "They're cheesy and they all tell the same story."

Lonsdale, one member of the unfairly talented ensemble cast of the ABC TV series Dance Academy, knows what he's talking about. Three years on the series, widely respected both here and abroad for how honestly it depicted the personal and professional struggles of aspiring dancers, gave him and his fellow actors/dancers some insight into what feels real and what doesn't.

So even though a burgeoning international career — including a regular role on the superhero TV series The Flash — is keeping him busy these days, he was still stoked to return home and reprise his role of the gifted but cocky Ollie Lloyd in Dance Academy: The Movie, currently in cinemas.

"I grew up as a dancer, and so did a lot of my friends, so this is a really good representation of that life, all the good and bad parts of it," says Lonsdale. "With the show and now with the movie, I think we're telling a story that teaches a lesson but that is also inspiring."

While the main storyline of Dance Academy: The Movie follows Tara (Xenia Goodwin) as she fights to recover from a career-stalling back injury and make her way back to the stage, every character from the series gets their own character arc in the film. And for Lonsdale's Ollie, it's one that takes him in some unexpected directions, as stardom away from the world of dance first beckoned then turned its back on him.

"At the end of the series, Ollie's dreams sort of came true," he says. "But as the movie begins, we find he's in a different place, and not necessarily a great place. It's a little comical - I think people understand that Ollie is confident, maybe even cocky and entitled, so it's interesting to see him in a position where's a he's bit humbled and has to work hard to get what he wants."

It's something that rang true for Lonsdale and the dancers he knows and works with. "We've all had that," he says. "Ollie is an incredible dancer but talent only takes you so far. It's persistence, it's hard work, it's luck, it's everything. So it's nice to see that, because we often think we deserve to get everything we want but it doesn't always come easily. It's good to see the ups and downs."

Filming his Flash role as fleet-footed Wally West in Vancouver, Canada ten months a year doesn't give Lonsdale much of a break, but he admits he was happy to forgo a holiday to return to Sydney and make Dance Academy: The Movie, especially since he was joined not only by his old castmates but much of the show's behind-the-scenes team.

"I knew I wasn't going to get a break, but it was worth it," he smiles. "We had a lot of the crew from four years prior as well as the cast, so it was super-nostalgic and super-fun doing it one more time. But they did keep referring to us as 'the kids', and we were like 'Yo, we're in our 20s now!'"