.jpg)
Warning: Spoilers for Ginny & Georgia season 3 ahead.
Diesel La Torraca has been doing this for a long time.
Yes, the 14-year-old Australian Ginny & Georgia star has been on the Netflix series as Ginny’s little brother Austin for almost half of his life thus far, but he’s also been a working actor since he was in diapers. (The first gig he ever booked was a nappy commercial for a global supermarket chain.) La Torraca uses this lifetime of acting training to its full potential in Ginny & Georgia season 3, which thrusts his character into intense emotional situations that yank the heart strings to the point of near removal.
La Torraca’s character Austin has been on the sidelines for most of the series, taking a backseat to the literal life-or-death drama that continuously engulfs the two titular characters. But in season 3, Austin steps into the spotlight and plays a crucial role in the season’s main storyline, and we get to see the effects of two seasons of neglect begin to take root.
Austin looks a bit different this season, as La Torraca himself had a growth spurt in between seasons 2 and 3 that feels reminiscent of the hilariously unacknowledged growth spurts of the Stranger Things kids between seasons 3 and 4.
"Him growing as fast as he is is probably the funniest part of all of this,” La Torraca’s costar Sara Waisglass, who plays Maxine, says. “The boy has to shave his mustache before he comes to work, that was obviously not a thing in season one."
Below, Teen Vogue sat down with Diesel La Torraca to discuss Ginny & Georgia season 3’s big twist, how he’s managing to play a nine-year-old realistically, and what’s in store for him in season 4 and beyond.
Diesel La Torraca: Yeah. I was born in Australia. I grew up in Australia for the formative years of my life. I was about 7 the first time I left — [it was] 2019 when I came to the U.S. for my first pilot season in LA. But yeah, I grew up in Australia on the Northern Beaches in Sydney. I'm Australian-born, true blue.
DLT: I love Australia so much, especially Sydney. I miss it so much, being over here, traveling and away from home and friends and family and the beach. I miss the beautiful beaches and the Australian culture, and the food… I miss and love everything about it, and I'm so grateful for where I grew up.
DLT: A little bit, yeah. The “naurs” and stuff that we get from the other cast members, we put up with it together.
DLT: My mom is an actress. And when I was born, they knew that she had a baby and they called her up and were like, “We need a baby. Can we use your kid for this Aldi nappy — or diaper, as you call it in the U.S. — commercial?" She never ever wanted to push [her kids] into it or anything, so she was like uh... and they were like, “Please!” So I did this commercial, and that was the first thing I ever did. I kind of grew up on set with my mom when she was doing jobs, just watching her work on set, sitting in the background of auditions.
I did a few commercials in the years following that first one, and then in 2017, I auditioned for the first film that I ever did, Little Monsters, which was the first big set I was on with Lupita Nyong'o and Josh Gad. That film went to Sundance in 2019, and that was the first time I came to America… and from there it just kind of went off. We came back to Australia after that, during the pandemic, [I continued] auditioning. And then I got Ginny & Georgia and came over here, and it's just been really great since.
DLT: It's crazy. I think about it a lot like, “Wow, like, where am I? I'm halfway across the world from where I was born, and I'm doing all these crazy things at such a young age.” But it's all I've ever known, right? I know nothing outside of it, and it's crazy to know that this is just the life that I kind of fell into. I never really tried to do it, it just kind of happened. It does feel a little bit like whiplash sometimes.
DLT: Currently, I'm doing like a pop, R&B type-feel, so think Justin Bieber, ‘90s, early 2000s-type beats and stuff like that. As far as favorite artists go, I have a very broad taste when I'm listening to music, from Lana Del Rey to Drake. Very wide.
DLT: Literally, I've definitely gotten much taller, and I look much older in the face. [Laughs] Otherwise, I feel like I've grown so much as an actor. I've done other things in between Ginny & Georgia that have really helped me find myself in this job, and I've grown with Austin because it's been so long. [The show] has been the main center of my life for six years… I've grown up with the character in that way. It's really great that I've been with it for so long, and I get to adapt season after season like this.
DLT: This kind of relates to my own life, that no matter where you are in the world, you can always find your grounding. Austin has moved around the U.S. so much as a kid with Ginny and Georgia. And so have I — I have lived all around the world, crazy places, moving here and there at the drop of a dime, like, “Today we're in LA, tomorrow we have this job, we have to go halfway across the world.”
DLT: [Laughs] Nine! Yeah, he's supposed to be nine. I think it's the very beginning of the first episode of season 1, we're driving in the car and Ginny turns down the music, and she's like, “He's nine,” and I feel like that's the only time we've mentioned it… he hasn’t had a birthday yet.
DLT: Well, honestly, we kind of ignore it a little bit! [Laughs] It's kind of just like… there's a 14-year-old sitting at the table with Harry Potter glasses on that's supposed to be nine. And that's okay! In some shots I did have to bend my knees a little bit to look a little shorter than Toni, or they got her an apple box a few times, but for the most part we've kind of just kept the show running.
DLT: Yeah, that is definitely a thing. Playing a nine-year-old for six years when you are growing… I've grown with him, but I've also kind of departed from him because I was eight when we started, now I'm 14. There are a lot of differences in the way that he would move and act and speak. I have to heighten my voice register, slouch a little bit [to] feel like I'm actually a shy, insecure nine-year-old.
DLT: Not so much hunches, but I did know… so my mom was getting her hair done one day in West Hollywood, and we were like “Oh, Sarah Lampert, the creator of the show, lives right around the corner. Let's invite her here to talk.” She came over and we were just talking — [this is] in January of 2023 — and she told me a few things about what would happen in season 3 and sprinkles about season 4 that I can't mention. We knew that Georgia was in jail and I was wondering what would happen, because obviously, I saw her kill Tom, [and] what my role in that would all be. So yeah, I did kind of know.
DLT: Yeah, I had like a year and a half to sit with that, because of the strike it was pushed so much. It was really exciting. And eventually, when we got scripts, I was like, “Okay, it's happening!”
DLT: I honestly just think it's because he's a kid. And the pool of everything that goes on in the show, with Ginny’s school friends, and then with Georgia, it is so much to unpack. He's kind of on his own in the corner, within his own realm of drama and [processing all] that's happening around him. People can get really caught up in everything else that's happening, all these crazy things in the brilliant script, and forget about what's going on over there with Austin. I feel like Georgia and Ginny sometimes kind of forget that he's there, too.
DLT: I do think that would be a benefit. [Laughs] And I'm pretty sure at the end of season 3, Ginny does mention that to Georgia, like, “Can we put him in therapy now?” So I think that maybe might be a thing that actually is going to happen in season 4.
DLT: I would say the scene where Austin and Ginny get pulled away by social services. That was a hectic day. Even just the themes of that scene are pretty heavy, and the physicality of it all really helps you get into that terrified kind of mood, when you're moving around and fighting with someone. The choreography that went along with that with the stunt people, that was a crazy day, but still a fun one. Every day is a fun one.
DLT: The fact that he was forced to choose between Mom or Dad was the real core and heart of it. He has only known his dad for [a few] months at this point, he doesn't really know his dad that much. That night in season 2 was such a heavy night, he saw his mom kill Tom and then he heard and saw his dad abusing his mom, and that was just a whole bunch to take on. Like, “Oh, my god, who is my mom?” And then, “Oh my god, who is my dad?”
So in season 3 he really has to choose, and I feel like that is the main thing that he's going to be struggling with, is the guilt of that and the aftermath of, where is his dad now? Is he ever going to see him again? And even does he want to see him again?
DLT: His whole life he's had this idea of who his dad is, and he's never had a dad. He's always wanted to meet him, writing the letters and stuff, and eventually, when he meets him, he’s so happy. He's this guy who does magic tricks and takes him to these hockey games. Then he realizes who he is.
When Ginny comes to him, he really has to come to terms with the fact that his dad is not a very good person at heart, and Georgia, even though she does some crazy things, her actions are usually led by good intent. He realizes that his dad has some issues that outweigh his mom's. And obviously he grew up with Georgia — he loves her so much and is so comfortable with her, and his dad is half a stranger to him. So I feel like in the end, he chooses his mom because he feels that he doesn't know his dad, and what he does know of his dad is that he is not a very good person.
DLT: I found out about that twist in that hair salon in 2023. Sarah Lampert was like, “You’re going to save the day.” I'd known about it for a very long time. I was very excited to have some important content for Austin within the story, because without him, what would they do? Georgia was probably going to go to jail if he didn't turn on his dad like that. It was really very exciting to get to do that.
DLT: I think it's that he is unsure if he maybe made the right decision, that level and weight of guilt and shame about what he did to his dad… he has some doubt about it, I feel.
DLT: With Ginny, he feels like he was put a little bit under pressure at the end of season 3. Like, “This is the only way we're gonna get Mom out.” I feel he's going to be a little mad and distasteful towards Ginny, specifically, because he feels like she was the one who really made him do that. And towards Georgia, I feel like he will mostly be blinded by negative thoughts towards her. He loves his mom… [but] she's been in jail, and it was a whole hectic situation. And she's kind of the reward for [framing his dad].
DLT: I think he wanted, like best scenario, his mom out of prison. His dad a changed man and involved, there for him. But also being able to be with the family that he's been with his whole life and being able to stay in Wellsbury with his new friends, have Zach not be turned off of him because of what Georgia did to his dad. That's the perfect world for him: having both parents is really the core of it.
DLT: Well, I think he needs a little bit of therapy, as we have have said, and I think he needs a few friends. He got to the school, had a bully, [made a] friend out of that bully. But now, doesn't really have a friend out of that bully. I feel like he needs to come out of his shell a little bit, find more of a grounding in his social life.
DLT: There are so many, but I think I would go with the day I was doing the scene where I trashed the classroom. That was one of my favorite scenes to do this season, that was fun to mess everything up, to pour coffee over people's heads and stuff like that. That was really great. [Laughs]
DLT: Honestly, I feel that I sit quite well in drama stuff, drama films with a lot of emotion. With — this isn't a word but — “hectivity,” hectic activity? Marvel is a big thing that I've always wanted to do. I'm just waiting for the day that I get to be on a Marvel project. I have before, but it was cut from the show. I was Young Hawkeye on the Hawkeye series. It’s still in the little extras on Disney+, which is great. That was a phenomenal experience. But yeah, Marvel and other kind of dramatic, raw films.
