Murray Bartlett has won or been nominated for more than a dozen acting awards, but the one he’ll receive Saturday hits closest to home. Six years after moving to the Outer Cape, Bartlett is being honored by a community he’s embraced.
The Provincetown International Film Festival will present Bartlett with its Excellence in Acting Award a day after screening Ponyboi, in which a young intersex sex worker is forced to confront his past after a bad drug deal sends him on the run from the mob. In the film, Bartlett plays Bruce — he’s a “cowboy archetype,” says the actor. River Gallo wrote the screenplay, plays the lead role, and will also be in town to receive one of the festival’s New Wave Awards.
Three decades into his career, Bartlett was ready to leave New York City to be closer to nature. He’d considered his native Australia, but in 2019, his partner suggested Cape Cod, one of the couple’s favorite vacation spots. They moved to Provincetown, stayed here during the pandemic, and then moved to Truro three years ago. “I try to keep one foot in town, even though I’m hiding out in the woods,” he says.
Bartlett worried that being far from entertainment industry centers would hurt his career. But living surrounded by beaches and woods “has been transformative,” he says. “I felt so happy living here, being part of this community, being in this beautiful place, that I started to flourish as a human. Coincidentally, my work life started to really expand. Having this foundation here shifted the trajectory of my life in an amazing way.”
In late 2020, Bartlett was offered a role in The White Lotus as Armond, a pushed-to-the-edge resort manager. He worked in Hawaii for six months, but his attachment to the Cape remained strong. “To my P’town family, I love you!” Bartlett said in accepting his 2022 Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor.
In 2023, he received two more Emmy nominations for his performances as a gay choreographer in Hulu’s Welcome to Chippendales and as Frank in a same-sex love story in an episode of HBO’s The Last of Us.
Last year, Bartlett was seen at the film festival as a park ranger in Ahmed Ibrahim’s short A Chair for Her. It also starred Bo, his border collie-black Lab mix often seen in Bartlett’s social media posts.
In season two of Hulu’s Nine Perfect Strangers, Bartlett plays a troubled former children’s show host and puppeteer at a wellness center operated by Nicole Kidman. Two movies debuted in March: Opus, in which Bartlett plays the misogynistic editor of a music magazine, and Hulu’s O’Dessa, featuring Bartlett as a megalomaniac leader who rules post-apocalypse survivors through TV game shows.
“I feel fortunate to be given these opportunities, and I’m hungry for it,” says Bartlett. “I’ve been in this wonderful period of work flowing, and God willing it will continue.”
Bartlett has said that he was drawn to acting as a child after his brother accidentally knocked out two of his front teeth in a spider-killing incident gone wrong. Bartlett worked for years with a speech therapist. He attended theater camps and an arts high school and studied acting at the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney. He moved to the U.S. in 2000. His break came when he was cast as a guest star on Sex and the City.
His smile and facial hair have become charming trademarks. Bartlett’s mustache has been credited with helping win him the Armond role, as well as that of restaurateur Dom in HBO’s Looking, a series focusing on gay men’s lives and friendships. He sported his salt-and-pepper beard in the “Long, Long Time” episode of The Last of Us, co-starring Emmy-winner Nic Offerman.
“I was obsessed with getting that job because I’d never been so moved by a script,” says Bartlett. “We all knew it was very special.” The episode departs from the zombie-fleeing, video-game-inspired story to show a different perspective on the importance of love.
“That episode generated a beautiful wave of love,” Bartlett says, “and from people who would not necessarily watch a love story like that between two men.”
In Ponyboi, to be released on June 27, Bartlett plays a more traditional role. “My character, Bruce, has that stereotypical masculine energy of being able to come in and swoop you away from things you might need to be protected from,” he says. “The lines are blurred whether Bruce is a part of Ponyboi, a fantasy figure in Ponyboi’s life, or a bit of both.”
Bartlett filmed Ponyboi after his White Lotus role of a pill-popping, cocaine-sniffing manager brought multiple offers of similarly frenzied characters. “It was lovely to step into this grounded, authentic, comfortable-in-his-skin character who reaches out to Ponyboi and provides stability,” he says.
Three Bartlett movies await release: At the Sea, with Amy Adams and filmed largely in Plymouth; The Death of Robin Hood, in which he plays a guide to Hugh Jackman’s end-of-life hero; and A Place to Be, about an elderly woman’s unexpected odyssey, in which he plays Ellen Burstyn’s son.
What surprised him about filming A Place to Be in Australia was that he felt homesick — for the Cape.
“I carry the Cape with me everywhere,” Bartlett says. “Just knowing my home is here is very soothing mentally and has a grounding influence on me. I’ve never had as much of a sense of home as an adult as I do here.”
