1 of 4 | Luke Bracey and Maia Mitchell star in “Artful Dodger.” Photo courtesy of Hulu
Elvis, Point Break and Hacksaw Ridge actor Luke Bracey has joined The Artful Dodger in Season 2 as Inspector Boxer, a law-man who immediately finds himself at odds with the show’s roguish title character.
“He’s a little bit running away from something, maybe, and trying to find a new life,” Bracey, 36, told UPI about Boxer in a recent phone interview.
“He’s a bit ‘Sherlock Holmes meets Mr. Darcy,’ so he’s a bit mysterious and he’s a very moral man, a very upstanding man. He wants to do the right thing and believes in the rule of law.”
Set in 19th-century Australia and based on the characters from Charles Dickens’ classic British novel, Oliver Twist, the adventure dramedy is now streaming on Hulu.
It follows Thomas Brodie-Sangster’s former juvenile pickpocket Jack “the Artful Dodger” Hawkins as he tries to save lives as a surgeon, while wooing the governor’s daughter, Lady Belle (Maia Mitchell), against the adamant wishes of her mother, Lady Jane (Susie Porter).
David Thewlis plays Fagin, Dodger’s criminal mentor, who appears years after abandoning Dodger and disrupts the respectable life he is trying to build by constantly dragging him into schemes.
Boxer arrives in town just as dead bodies start turning up with their organs surgically removed, leading some to believe Dodger is the culprit.
“He’s got his suspicions, but he’s not a zealot. He has his convictions and he has his instincts and he tries to follow the facts as much as he can and he tries not to be swayed by by emotion,” Bracey said about Boxer’s investigation into Dodger.
“He’s not pig-headed and he’s not arrogant and he’s not too proud, I don’t think either,” Bracey said about the inspector. “He’s a really noble man and it takes a noble man to do what he does through this season and, at points, admit he was wrong and, at points, stick by his convictions.”
Lady Jane is ecstatic when Boxer arrives because she hopes he will lock up Dodger and marry Belle.
“He’s not here to look for a new love or a love in general. He’s here to do his job and to uphold the law and, all this stuff with Belle, I think, really catches him by surprise,” Bracey said.
“I don’t think he expects to have feelings for anyone. So, all that is kind of new for him and that kind of throws him off what he’s normally really, really good at,” he added. “It kind of throws a little spanner in the works, in terms of what he really prides himself on, which is being clear minded.”
Although Boxer and Belle strike up an easy and genuine friendship, Boxer is also smart enough to know Lady Jane is constantly trying to manipulate situations so they can be alone together.
“He understands that Lady Jane is probably the brains behind the entire operation of the Colony of Port Victory. I think he sees that she’s the one kind of running the show and that she’s a very intelligent, intelligent woman and I think he respects it to a degree,” Bracey said.
“But, then, he also has these clashes with her and, just because you’re running the show, it doesn’t mean you can bypass what is right and what is correct for your own goals and ambitions for her and her family,” the actor added.
“He does want to tread lightly. He knows his position in the pecking order. He knows he’s being employed by these people and that he serves at the pleasure of them. But he also has, as I said, a strong, a strong moral code, and he won’t be swayed to please anyone.”
The show marks a reunion for Bracey and Porter, who previously co-starred in the 2025 film, The Travellers.
“She’s so much fun, and she’s such a fantastic actress and just a great person, to boot,” Bracey said. “She always makes your day better and she’s just a wonderful person to be around and a wonderful person to act with.”
When they were making the film, Bracey said, Porter would talk about how much fun she had on the Dodger set.
“So, then when Dodger called me and asked me to be involved, it was easy to remember those conversations that I’d had with Susie of her telling me just how enjoyable working on the show was and just how quality everyone involved was, how professional everyone was and how much fun and how great work it was,” he said.
Bracey will soon be seen in the lead role of Charles Ingalls in Netflix’s reboot of the beloved American pioneer drama, Little House on the Prairie.
While the two shows are set in different countries a few decades apart, they both focus on people with strict moral codes and ideas about social decorum.
“There’s a certain simplicity to the worlds, as well,” Bracey said.
“I did enjoy being in a period piece again, when I was doing Little House,” he added. “It’s such an easy thing to immerse yourself into the new world when you’re portraying this kind of time 140 years ago, 160 years ago.”
Short-term ❌ Long-term ❌ Casual ❌ A slow burn like this ✅ pic.twitter.com/1wTLlylLZ7— Hulu (@hulu) February 14, 2026
