PIERCE Brosnan and Samuel L. Jackson are just a couple of the high-profile actors in the next star-studded line-up for Richard Gray’s latest film – a man with strong Hamilton family ties.

Richard is the second eldest grandchild of the late Fred and Mary Guy, well-known long-time Hamilton residents, with the Melbourne born director frequenting Hamilton during his childhood to visit relatives.

Richard is also the eldest nephew of award-winning global photography guru and now renowned Spectator photographer, Glenn Guy.

Shooting live from the set of his co-owned purpose-built studio, Yellowstone Film Ranch in Montana USA, the director/producer’s latest film ‘Unholy Trinity’ also stars Tim Daly (Wings) and Veronica Ferres (Hector and the Search for Happiness).

In 2022, the eldest child of Maree - who is Fred and Mary’s first-born - Richard celebrated the release of his movie ‘Murder at Yellowstone City’ with rave reviews.

That was a classic western, circa late 19th century, with good old-fashioned shoot-outs set in what was once a thriving gold-rush boom town that had since fallen on hard times.

Stars included Richard Dreyfuss of ‘Jaws’ and ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ fame, Thomas Jane who starred in the ABC’s mini-series ‘Troppo’ last year, alongside Irish actor and film director, Gabriel Byrne, who had previously starred in ‘End of Days’, ‘Lost Girls’, and ‘The Man in the Iron Mask’.

A film review by Variety commended Richard’s film as a well-crafted mix of traditional western and murder mystery and for which it said director, Richard Gray, had assembled an exceptional cast.

Although he didn’t grow up in Hamilton, Richard said he had fond memories and maintained strong family connections to the town.

Local readers may recall Richard also previously worked in television to secure finance to go onto bigger and better things in Hollywood, by producing and directing a Lifestyle Channel cooking show ‘Stefano’s Cooking Paradiso’, starring Stefano de Pieri.

His latest venture is another western movie with the cast ensemble also including Brandon Lessard and Q’orianka Kilcher.

The film was written by Lee Zachariah and is set against the turbulent backdrop of 1870s in Montana, USA.

It picks up in the moments before the execution of Isaac Broadway, as he gives his estranged son, Henry (Lessard), an impossible task: murder the man who framed him for a crime he didn’t commit. Intent on fulfilling his promise, Henry travels to the remote town of Trinity, where an unexpected turn of events traps him in town and leaves him caught between Gabriel Dove (Brosnan), the town’s upstanding new sheriff, and a mysterious figure named St. Christopher (Jackson).

By the age of 15 Richard was making short films and working in movie theatres in Victoria and won multiple international film festival awards for a short film called “Yellow Brick Dreams”.

Richard attained a bachelor’s degree in film at the Victorian College of the Arts School of Film and Television.

Growing up, he spent many school holidays in Hamilton visiting family and staying with his grandparents, in fact it was while at Fred and Mary’s McIntyre Street residence that he wrote his first film in 2004, a romantic drama, ‘Summer Coda’ released in 2010.