Karl Urban

Karl Urban's varied Kiwi acting career has seen him battling demons, losing his voice, and playing both lawman and heavy. Since appearing in the last episode of The Lord of the Rings trilogy in 2003, Urban has worked mainly in American film.

Karl Urban grew up in what he describes as a "renaissance period" for New Zealand filmmaking. His mother worked at a Wellington production company, and the young Urban was inspired by watching iconic eighties films like Smash Palace and Utu.

When Urban was eight, friends of his mother got him a small role in the Ettie Rout episode of TV series Pioneer Women. As a boy peeking through a window, Urban got to utter the line "they've got no proper clothes on".

At high school he acted and directed on stage, and made some short films. At the age of 18, having decided to pursue acting, Urban portrayed a heroin addict on an episode of police series Shark in the Park. Small roles followed in Gallipoli movie Chunuk Bair, and TV show White Fang.

In 1992 Urban got his big break, joining the cast of TV3's first drama series Homeward Bound. The small town family piece won rave reviews, but uninspiring ratings. Urban played lazy but gifted teenager Timothy Johnstone, acting alongside Peter Elliott, Tina Grenville and Simone Kessell.

The following year Urban joined the cast for the second season of Shortland Street, and  reunited with fellow Streeters Claire Chitham and Jodie Rimmer on horseriding drama Riding High.

1997 was the year that Urban's career shifted gear. He played both Julius Caesar and Cupid in episodes of Xena and Hercules, and co-starred alongside Danielle Cormack in the failed pilot for Xena spin-off Amazon High. Urban also appeared in his first two feature films: he played a small role as a heavy in Scott Reynolds' under-appreciated Heaven, and a larger role in Anthony McCarten's ensemble piece Via Satellite. In the latter film Urban portrayed a cameraman who beds Danielle Cormack's character, then the following day turns up to film her, when her twin sister competes in the Olympics.

Two years later Urban won his first starring role, playing an anthropology lecturer named Harry Ballard. The Irrefutable Truth about Demons, a horror movie filmed largely after dark, was the story of a man of science "forced to swallow his skepticism about the mysterious forces of evil and the entirely flexible nature of reality" (Variety). Reviewer David Rooney praised the film's thrills and brooding atmosphere, writing that Urban "makes an appealing lead".

Soon after Urban signed on to a lead role, again opposite Danielle Cormack, in pastoral love story The Price of Milk, even though director Harry Sinclair refused to tell him exactly what it was about. Sinclair's improvisational, relatively unrehearsed approach to moviemaking called on new acting muscles, since Urban is normally a strong believer in preparation. Urban later said that having to respond truthfully in the moment meant he had no chance to "create the preconceptions that could make a performance stale."

Urban was nominated for best actor awards in the Film and Television Awards for both Demons and Milk. After watching a rough cut of his role in the latter, Peter Jackson cast Urban in the last two episodes of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Urban played horse-riding Rohan warrior Eomer.

In an interview with Pavement magazine in 2002, Urban argued that Kiwi actors often found it difficult to get work locally once they reach a certain level of home soil exposure. From Rings on, he worked almost entirely overseas.

Having already made a number of "mercenary runs" to Los Angeles to gain contacts in the film industry, Urban's American debut came with 2002 horror tale Ghost Ship, released in the United States six weeks before The Two Towers.

Since then Urban has appeared with Vin Diesel and Judi Dench in sci-fi film The Chronicles of Riddick, and in video game adaptation Doom. The opening scenes of hit sequel The Bourne Supremacy (2004) - in which Urban plays Russian hitman Kirill - see him pursuing Matt Damon's character through the streets of Goa. He also took one of the major roles in Comanche Moon, the mini-series prequel to Lonesome Dove, and endured a gruelling outdoor shoot to play the the Viking hero in failed adventure Pathfinder.

In 2006 Urban returned to New Zealand to join the ensemble cast of Out of the Blue, based on the 1990 Aramoana massacre. Urban played Nick Harvey, one of a handful of under-armed policemen who hunted for gunman David Gray. In 2008 Urban won the award for best supporting actor for the role at the NZ Film and TV Awards.

His slate of upcoming projects includes conspiracy thriller Red, whose cast includes Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, and John Malkovich. In 2009 he appeared in the acclaimed J. J. Abrams reboot of Star Trek. Urban plays Doctor 'Bones' McCoy.