There is a new home on the prairie.
Gen-Xers probably remember growing up with the gentle Western series Little House on the Prairie that ran on NBC from 1974 to 1983. Little House was a cultural juggernaut at the time, enduring a blockbuster 200-episode run over nine seasons. In the original show, Michael Landon played the tough Charles Ingalls, the patriarch of the Ingalls family, and kept a close eye on young Laura, played by Melissa Gilbert. The series was an adaptation of the autobiographical novels by Laura Ingalls Wilder, who wrote a series of children’s memoirs about being a pioneer in the late 1800s. Wilder wrote eight Little House books between 1932 and 1943, and the title of the television series took its title from Wilder’s third book.
Hollywood, seeing some lingering cultural IP, has now resurrected Little House on the Prairie in 2026, this time for a streaming platform. The Netflix series debuted on July 8 and ran for eight episodes. The new Laura was played by Alice Halsey, and the new Charles was played by Australian actor Luke Bracey.
You may recognize Luke Bracey as he has been acting professionally on screen since 2009. He got his start in the Australian soap opera Home and Away and made his film debut in 2011 with Monte Carlo, a romance with Selena Gomez and Leighton Meester. It was the one where Gomez played both a lovelorn American teenager and a snotty British socialite who was mistaken for her. Scams arise. Bracey played the love interest of Mister’s character.
Bracey’s most notable starring role came in 2015 when he played Johnny Utah a remake of Breaking Point.
Luke Bracey has starred in many hit Hollywood films
You definitely won’t recognize Luke Bracey for his role as Commander Cobra in the John M. Chu’s 2013 action film GI Joe: Retaliation, as his face was covered and his voice was provided by Robert Baker. However, if you liked the character’s body language, that’s it, Bracey, baby.
Luke Bracey is one of those dependable, handsome actors who’s been building up an impressive resume since Monte Carlo. His handsome face has long made him stand out for soldiers, cops and other soft lead roles. He played a CIA guy in The November Man and a younger version of James Marsden’s character in The Best of Me, based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks. He was one of the soldiers in Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge in 2016 before landing another starring role in the heist comedy Happy Day, a sequel to the indie crime hit Killing Zoe.
Bracey continued to work fairly regularly, appearing in the Justin Bateman’s directorial debut “Violet” in 2021 and won the role of Jethro Schilling (one of the members of Elvis Presley’s “Memphis Mafia”) in the Australian director Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis in 2022. He moved back and forth between Hollywood and Australia, appearing in mainstream American studio films such as Maybe I Do with Diane Keaton and Richard Gere, and Australian TV shows such as Smart Trick. His last film was Bruce Beresford’s Travelers, in which he appeared alongside Brian Brown. His last TV show was, well, Little House on the Prairie. At 37, he’s had a pretty good career, and it’s been broad enough for the casual viewer to say, “Hey, I’ve seen him before.”
