George Houvardas

George Michael Houvardas was born in Sydney Australia on 3rd January, 1982 to Anastasia Houvardas a teacher and Michael Houvardas an accountant. His father, Michael, was the youngest child of four and immigrated with his family from the Greek island of Lesvos. His mother, Anastasia, was born in Australia to Greek immigrant parents also from the island of Lesvos. George is one of three and sits comfortably in the middle between eldest brother, Steven and youngest brother, Anthony. In his teenage years he worked alongside his family in various family owned restaurants and function centres and to this day, despite his continuous work in the arts, continues to work alongside his brothers and parents at Piato Restaurant in Sydney. He says "There's no better environment to observe natural human behavior and character than a restaurant". During his schooling years his passion for acting and the arts lay dormant with no drama or arts subjects being offered. Upon finishing year 12 George studied construction management and worked in the building industry for four years. It was during this time, whilst attending TAFE for his building studies, that by chance he stumbled upon the Actor's College for Theatre and Television that lay hidden no more than a block away. He signed up for a 2 week Acting course and his passion for acting was reawakened. By the end of the two weeks he had given notice to his Construction boss and surprised his parents with a theatre performance and told them he was concentrating on acting from here on. Enrolling to Screenwise it didn't take long for George to catch the attention of producers scoring his first major break out role as the character 'Carbo' on 'Packed to the Rafters' which went on to be Australia's highest rating series. He showed his versatility with psycho hit man on the acclaimed series 'East West 101', as 'Rev' the reformed priest in the film comedy 'Chasing Comets' and as cowardly bikie 'Dib' in the acclaimed gritty bikie drama 1% (Outlaws). In 2019 George returned to TV screens with the highly acclaimed British/Australian dramedy series 'Frayed' playing megalomaniac politician 'Chris' and in 2020 he will be returning to his breakout role 'Carbo' in Amazon Prime's 'Back to the Rafters'.