After years on Aussie TV, Underbelly star Gyton Grantley moved his family to other side of the world

Exclusive: For years, Aussie actor Gyton Grantley worked as a voice artist from inside a wardrobe at home in Melbourne – which raised the question, why couldn’t he do the same from a home on the other side of the world?

So, in 2023 the Logie winner, 46, his wife Alex Ortuso and their three children packed their bags and left Melbourne for “la dolce vita” in Sardinia, Italy.

“Like most Melburnians, after being one of the most locked-down cities in the world during COVID, once it had finished, we were pretty keen to get the hell out of here,” he told nine.com.au.

“Alex and I have been to Italy many times ourselves, but she’s a dual citizen and the kids also have their passports so it was very possible to do.“

He said they began planning the move in 2022, while their son Rocco, 10, and daughters Sohi, 7, and Olive, 5, were still young.

They settled on Sardinia for two main reasons: Grantley wanted to be by the water, and the capital, Cagliari, had an international school for the kids.

“It all just made sense to go at that time, post-COVID, young children, and to see what happens,” he said. “Just take the leap.”

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Grantley, who became a household name thanks to his role as Carl Williams in 2008’s Underbelly, had concerns about leaving his career in Australia behind – but thankfully, he found the transition pretty seamless.

Alex, a teacher, got work at the international school their children attended, and Grantley followed suit by teaching an after-school drama club as well as masterclasses at a local drama academy – all while keeping up with what was happening at home.

“There were worries that the work would drop off, but a lot of the time people didn’t even realise I was overseas,” he said.

“COVID forcing the world to do a lot of things from home made it a lot more possible, so I still even did auditions because we all do self-tapes at home now.

“When auditions came along, I was still recording my tapes and sending them in, and we just agreed that if I did work to get a good job, I’d go back and do it, which did happen.”

For 18 months, the family enjoyed both the adventures their move brought and finding a day-to-day routine in their new normal.

But it wasn’t all smooth sailing, as evidenced by the title of Grantley’s newly released book, Il Dolce Fiasco, which translates to The Sweet Fiasco.

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It documents the idyllic moments alongside the chaos (and the food), including navigating Italian bureaucracy and neighbourhood disputes.

“There was a moment where we moved into our second apartment, and we received complaints from some young uni students who were living upstairs,” he said of one major curveball.

“We had a little trampoline set up on a balcony, and they’d taken a video of our kids jumping up and down on Saturday morning at 10am with the words, ‘How am I supposed to live like this?’ And we thought this was just incredible, that they were upset with our children playing at 10am.”

After an author friend encouraged Grantley to turn those kinds of stories into a book, the process came naturally.

“I’ve never written a book before, but it had already happened, so the hard part was already sorted,” he said.

“I knew how it ended and I had an idea of all the characters. I’d just take myself up to a local library and once I got started, it was really, really easy. It just kind of fell out of me. It was fun.”

Now back in Melbourne, Grantley said the family’s return felt, in a way, like they had never left.

“We just pushed pause on our life, and went and had this incredible adventure, and had all these amazing experiences and discoveries, and then came back and just pressed play again and got back to it,” he explained.

“So we’ll always have that, we’ll always have those memories and that adventure.”