WARNING: This article contains spoilers from the first four episodes of Younger, season 7.
Younger finally debuted its seventh and (sob!) final season on Stan on April 15, dropping the first four episodes of its swansong and finally taking us off the edge of our seats after that proposal.
If you’re Team Charles and were hoping that Liza would breathily say yes (and we’d get to spend the final season planning her wedding at Charles’ Hamptons’ estate) then I’m sorry to say Darren Star and company have done you dirty.
If you are Team Josh and were hoping Liza would hastily turn down Charles’ proposal and ride off into the sunset with her young lover on his motorbike like some sort of modern-day hipster Mrs Robinson…then you were also probably kind of bummed.
But turn those frowns upside down because the show provided some new eye candy for you all by way of one Kai Manning — a surfer with abs to make you say “Charles and Josh who?!”.
Even more excitingly, Kai is Aussie and, rather than cast some American dreamboat who looks good but butchers our accent, he is played by some homegrown talent — Matt Passmore.
Brisbane born Passmore is much more than just a chiselled jaw and six-pack, having graduated from the prestigious National Institute of the Dramatic Arts (NIDA) in NSW.
He enjoyed appearances on Play School, Blue Heelers, Last Man Standing and Always Greener before joining the cast of McCleod’s Daughters in 2006 where he was the love interest of Bridie Carter’s character.
He later returned to McCleod’s but in a different role — this time as Marcus, Alex’s half-brother — and remained on the series from 2006-2009.
Before long, Passmore decided to do what most Aussie actors do and head to Los Angeles to try his luck there and it seems to have paid off as he was soon cast in the crime drama The Glades in the lead role of Jim Longworth, a Chicago police detective who becomes a state police detective in a Florida Everglades community. The series ran for four seasons before being cancelled.
Before being cast as Kai Manning, Passmore also had a role in Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why playing Deputy Sheriff Ted and the horror film Jigsaw in 2017.
Hopefully, we’ll be seeing much more of this Aussie talent on Younger as the season progresses, but in the meantime, you can find Passmore on Instagram here.
Read more stories from The Latch and subscribe to our email newsletter.