A new wave of Australian actor in sweeping across Hollywood, delivering star wattage, sex appeal, swagger and talent to turn. We dare you to take your eyes off six of the best Aussie imports since Mel Gibson.
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Moviegoers have already caught on to the fact that there is something different about Australian actors. Actors from Oz have been causing a commotion since the early '80s, when we first began taking note of the heroically handsome, charmingly self-deprecating Mel Gibson (American-born but Aussie-bred), the brooding, charmingly self-deprecating Sam Neill, the versatile, charmingly self-deprecating Bryan Brown and the hugely likable, charmingly self-deprecating Paul Hogan. Hollywood is now responding to a new influx of Aussie talent led by the awesomely talented, charmingly self-deprecating Russell Crowe and the rascally, charmingly self-deprecating Heath Ledger. What is it with Aussies? For one thing, the best of them seem like a throwback to unapologetically macho movie giants such as Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Errol Flynn and Spencer Tracy--all-around regular guys armed with a ready pair of fists, a code of honor and a roguish gleam in their eyes. On-screen Aussies seem to be less burdened--or less illuminated, depending on how you see it--by such modern-day innovations as political correctness, but they're so appealing that female moviegoers forgo feminist sensitivities to swoon over them. Male moviegoers want to go out and wrestle crocodiles with 'em, because in a cinematic era of whiners, wankers and self-enchanted pretty boys, they "read" as rugged independents who'll look you in the eye and spit in it if they must. Here, then, are some of the new wizards of Oz who are raising a fever throughout Hollywood without breaking a sweat themselves.
Russell Crowe
The Heat: Having brandished his formidable acting chops, his scowling charisma and his oiled pecs in Gladiator, 36-year-old Russell Crowe is now the star that many have predicted he would be for years. Crowe's Oscar nomination for last year's The Insider, following on his LA Confidential wake-up call performance, had already earned him respect with filmmakers. Meg Ryan knew well enough to want him opposite her in the upcoming love story Proof of Life, and Jodie Poster had no doubt he could bring oft the role of a tragically deformed circus performer in the love story she's directing, Flora Plum. Now everybody wants him for everything.
Back Story: New Zealand-born Crowe had appeared on several Australian TV series and a few movies by the time he was six. He continued acting in TV and film throughout his teens while following around his set-caterer parents, after which he toured in The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Grease. So, by the time he began making films he was an experienced actor--and it showed. In Jocelyn Moorhouse's arty, involving Proof, he was unaffectedly watch able and won a 1991 Best Supporting Actor award from the Australian Film Institute. As a violent skinhead in Romper Stamper, he won the Institute's 1992 Best Actor award. He proved his versatility again by beautifully playing Jack Thompson's gay son in 1994's The Sum of Us, Having seen Romper Stamper, Sharon Stone gave Crowe his first American break in 1995's The Quick and the Dead and declared him "the sexiest actor in movies." That led to an egregious waste of time in Denzel Washington's worst movie ever, Virtuosity, but things looked up when director Curtis Hanson (who'd also been impressed by Romper Stamper) chose Crowe to play the complex, brutal cop hero Bud White in LA Confidential.
Odd But True: Crowe, who is one-sixteenth Maori, sang during high school in the band 30 Odd Foot of Grunts and recorded songs under the name Rus Le Roc.
In His Own Words: "I'd move to Los Angeles if Australia and New Zealand were swallowed up by a huge tidal wave, if there was a bubonic plague in England, and if the continent of Africa disappeared from some Martian attack. In Australia, they treat you like a piece of furniture. Your mates are your mates and the folks who hate your dark and bloody guts, they don't change their minds. That's why I love it, I suppose."
Heath Ledger
The Heat: The brooding charisma and manly maturity that Ledger demonstrated in 10 Things I Hate About You set him apart from the herd of callow boy-men in Hollywood when he was just 20. When Mel Gibson chose him for The Patriot, a whole new level of stardom opened up. Now Ledger has donned shining armor to film the medieval adventure A Knight's Tale and will follow that up by swashbuckling in the wartime adventure romance Four Feathers.
Back Story: Although most Americans didn't catch on to him until 10 Things I Hate About You, the Perth-born Ledger has been a big noise in Australia for years. He began acting as a 10-year-old in musical productions at the Globe Shakespeare Company, and moved on to a string of series on Australian TV. He made his movie acting debut in the homegrown Blackrock (a nominee for Best Film by the Australian Film Institute) and Paws, then made Two Hands, a gangster pic costarring Bryan Brown that opened at the top of the Australian box office. In the 13-episode American sword-and-sorcery TV series "Roar" (created by Shaun Cassidy and shot in Queensland, Australia), he managed to look convincing as a young Celtic warrior in A.D. 400 until, despite an ardent Ledger following and a cast that included Keri Russell, the show got cancelled.
Odd But True: He was named alter Heathcliff, the tragic, passionate hero of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, and his sister was named Catherine after that same novel's willful heroine.
In His Own Words: "Hollywood is like an American high school. It has its own fashions, bitching, cliques and fads."
Hugh Jackman
The Heat: Jackman is making his American film debut in an extremely high-profile manner--as the razor-clawed action hero Wolverine in director Bryan Singer's X-Men. Dougray Scott had been set to do the part, but when Mission: Impossible 2 ran overtime, Jackman, a virtual unknown in Hollywood, won the role on the basis of a taped audition that one top casting director called "so sexy, people thought the video monitor would melt," For his follow-up to X-Men, Jackman chose to star opposite Ashley Judd in the edgy romantic comedy Animal Husbandry (which they should perhaps consider retiling Animal Magnetism).
Back Story: The 31-year-old actor/singer won raves in Australia in the 1996 stage productions of Beauty and the Beast and Sunset Boulevard, but Hollywood talent spotters really took notice of him when he caused a meltdown in London playing the never-been-so-sexy Curly in Oklahoma! (which earned him a 1999 Olivier Award nomination). Suspicions of star potential were confirmed by Jackman's performances in the movies Paperback Hero and Erskineville Kings, both released in 1999. Jackman met his wife, Deborra-Lee Furness, back in 1995 when he played a prisoner who fell in love with the shrink Furness played in the short-lived, but acclaimed Aussie TV series "Correlli."
Odd But True: Jackman was only a few units short of getting a journalism degree when he got cast in a play and abandoned the university to become an actor.
In His Own Words: "We're in the business of illusion, which, in this business, is things like 'heartthrob,' 'sex symbol,' 'star,' whatever. You are what you are. The moment you start to think you are what you do when you're not doing it, you're in big trouble."
Guy Pearce
The Heat: The 32-year-old Pearce radiates a coiled intensity and complexity that belie his matinee-idol good looks. Like Russell Crowe, with whom he shared raves in LA Confidential, Pearce seems to shape-shift from film to film. Bouncing back nicely from the dubious cannibal comedy-drama Ravenous, be burned holes in the screen as an Army major in Rules of Engagement, and now he's shooting a small-scale ghostly love story with Helena Bonham Carter called Till Human Voices Wake Us. Next he'll play the villain to Jim Caviezel's Count in a new screen version of Alexandre Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo.
Back Story: Having emigrated with his family from England to Geelong, Victoria, at age three, Pearce lost his father (a top test pilot) in a plane crash when he was nine. He dealt with that loss and his own shyness by joining a theater group, and within days of graduating from high school in 1985, he landed a role in the TV soap "Neighbours," on which he appeared (often shirtless) for the next years, becoming a national pinup. More TV followed, as well as the films hunting, Heaven Tonight and Dating the Enemy, and the lead role in the Australian national tour of Grease. Hollywood picked up on Pearce when he did a career about-face as a flamboyant, lip-syncing drag queen in 1994's The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. When casting director Mali Finn recommended Pearce to Curtis Hanson for L.A. Confidential, the director hadn't even heard of him, but was so wowed by his screen tests that he fought to cast him alongside fellow Aussie Russell Crowe.
Odd But True: As a teenage bodybuilder, Pearce win the "Mr. Junior Victoria" title.
In His Own Words: "So much in Hollywood is about shoving aside the little things and making somebody wash your car or do your laundry. People continually say to me, 'You're a big movie star now. You don't have to do those things.' But I think it's good to do all that stuff for yourself. It's like caring for your soul"
Adam Garcia
The Heat: In his first American movie, Coyote Ugly, Garcia plays the boyfriend of the showbiz-hopeful-turned-barmaid heroine (Piper Perabo) and shows off his special flair for revealing vulnerability under an exuberant, babe-magnet exterior. "That boy is going to be a big movie star," claims Coyote Ugly costar Bridget Moynahan, and Maria Bello, another Coyote woman, is no less enthusiastic: "Oh my God, is he hot. He has 'star' written all over him." Garcia reportedly missed out on playing the brainy stoner in the recent Road Trip due to a scheduling conflict (Paulo Costanzo got the role), but more will be revealed with the fall release of Boatmen, a tap-dancing The Full Monty.
Back Story: Garcia is a cofounder of the sexy Aussie dance troupe that eventually became the international sensation Tap Dogs. Last year he won acclaim during a year-long West End stage run of Saturday Night Fever and was likened to John Travolta, Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. You might have noticed him in a small role as a strapping coal miner in Wilde, the 1997 Brit biomovie of writer Oscar Wilde.
Odd But True: Garcia had to pay to buy back the Internet rights to his own name from a cyber entrepreneur who had started a Web site shrine devoted to him.
In His Own Words: Asked to comment on the ascendancy of the Aussie male on international screens, the wry Garcia remarked: "Australia's a really raw place and maybe we blokes reflect that. That and the fact that we're just fucking cool, hard as nails. We can bash concrete blocks as soon as we're born. With our penises."
Simon Baker
The Heat: In Red Planet Baker goes to Mars with Val Kilmer and Benjamin Bratt. Little surprise that people around Hollywood have jokingly dubbed the movie "Studs in Space." Back here on Earth, Baker has gone to Prague to star opposite Hilary Swank in the period drama The Affair of the Necklace.
Back Story: No matter how many times the 31-year-old Baker changes his name (he's been billed variously as "Denny Baker" and "Simon Baker-Denny"), people follow his career. Heroically outdoorsy, he looks born to gallop across wide open horizons and shred hearts for breakfast. But there's also something of a wink in his eye that tells you has on to himself. We Yanks missed him in his breakout role on the Aussie soap "Heartbreak High.' and we mostly missed him in the art house movie Judas Kiss with Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman. Once he came to L.A. four years ago with his wife (actress Rebecca Rigg) and daughter (they have since added another child to their brood), though, he made an outsized impression in his small role as the too-good-looking, naive gay actor who ends up dead in L.A. Confidential. In a higher- profile role in the less-seen Ride with the Devil, he played a wealthy, long-haired Kansas irregular during the Civil War.
Odd But True: As a teen, Baker was a state-level competitor in both surfing and water polo.
In His Own Words: Baker laughs off Hollywood's current love for Australian actors: "People like a new flavor. Next year, it will be Norwegians. Luckily, though, we Australians grew up swimming with sharks, so Hollywood is nothing."
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Stephen Rebello wrote about infamous screen couplings for the July issue of Movieline.