Joel Tobeck

Asked the key to success in the New Zealand screen industry, actor Joel Tobeck will tell you about "immersion". From learning about acting "by osmosis" as an usher at Auckland’s Mercury Theatre, to voicing radio adverts for eight hours a day at bFM, and auditioning eight times for a part in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys before winning it with "this crazy read — I just went for it"...Tobeck is known for his commitment.

“When I was younger, they knew that if they said to me, 'hey man, just go be crazy, and scream at everybody for 10 minutes', I would have done it. Yeah. Because I was like, well, that's what I'm here to do."

Tobeck had always been a creative child — he was obsessed with music, and had "a wild daydreaming side". He also had the advantage and disadvantage of a family connection to the business. Tobeck’s mother Liddy Holloway was best known in New Zealand for her long run as Alex McKenna in Shortland Street, but had been working in Australia for several years while Tobeck was growing up in Auckland. Holloway's connection with the Mercury Theatre meant that he acted alongside her at age five, during a season of The Duchess of Malfi.

As he grew older, Tobeck began to image a glamorous and exotic life in the arts, but Holloway was wary about encouraging him into a professional career that she knew could be unreliable. Tobeck had the bug. "All I wanted to do was work at the Mercury Theatre for the rest of my life."

At the age of 13, Tobeck was encouraged to join Auckland Youth Theatre and train with influential teacher and director Mary Amoore. There he met Danielle Cormack, who he would go on to work with in Topless Women Talk About Their Lives and Channelling Baby.

At the time — the mid-eighties — most television drama in New Zealand was being made in Wellington, and Tobeck thought his life was going to be in the theatre. "I was quite prepared to earn my $300 a week in theatre for the rest of my life." Then he was called to audition for a young adults TV series called Strangers, written by Margaret Mahy and directed by Peter Sharp.

He was joined by another debutant, Martin Henderson, and Navigator actor Hamish MacFarlane. On Strangers, Tobeck experienced immersion again — he learned to tap dance and to juggle fire. It also saw the beginning of one of his most important working relationships: he met his agent, former professional wrestler Robert Bruce.

"The thing about working with Robert Bruce from such a young age is that he seemed terrifying — but he was actually a big teddy bear too. I was a very sensitive 16-year-old kid, so I was petrified of him. I also had a mother who really reigned in my ego. because she knew that the industry was not a very stable one. And then Robert, who would bite my head off if I presented to be anything other than an actor looking for work. It was a great education for me and a great leveller to be with him."

After the success of Strangers, Tobeck auditioned for NZ Drama School (now Toi Whakaari) but was told that his career was going well enough that he probably didn’t need it. Instead, he took a surprising turn: a year training in contemporary dance at the Auckland Performing Arts School (now Unitec) alongside luminaries like Neil Ieremia and Sean MacDonald.

Tobeck believes that his year as a dancer helped with his acting. "Especially when I was playing in Hercules and Xena and all those shows where I was playing crazy gods, you had to be wacky and, you know, very physical. That background I had in contemporary dance was amazing, because any dancer will tell you, you're in tune with every part of your body. And so for me to have to express myself like that in these shows. It was a great education in that respect."

In 1992, Robert Bruce asked Tobeck to audition for a one-off TV drama called The Summer the Queen Came, written and directed by Niki Caro. The project proved to be hugely important to Tobeck’s development. It not only received two key nominations for Caro at the 1994 NZ Film and TV Awards, but it would change the way that Tobeck approached his acting. Tobeck talked about working with Caro in this 2010 video interview.

"I had never really met a director like her before, where she was trying to break down all my acting barriers, and she was just getting to the real me. So it was a great exercise for me in dropping what I thought was acting — and not acting . . . she taught me about subtlety." Tobeck worked with Caro again on 1994 short Sure to Rise, And Caro's first feature, Memory and Desire. Both were invited to the Cannes Film Festival. 

The 90s saw another project that would prompt Tobeck to go about acting in a different way — Harry Sinclair’s late-night micro-series Topless Women Talk about their Lives, whose ensemble cast also included former theatre classmate Danielle Cormack. Sinclair would often come up with scenarios and scenes on the fly, requiring a "seat of the pants" approach from his actors.

"He'd say, 'I'm just going to go for a walk', and he’d spend 10 minutes walking around so he just sort of saw it all in his head. I think that was his process. I like working on the fly anyway, and being quite spontaneous, and even though we still knew the backstory and what was going on, it was a great way to learn lines quickly."

In an unlikely development, the series was turned into a movie in 1997. It romped home with eight TV Guide Film and TV Awards, including Best Film and Tobeck's first award for Best Actor. The same year, he co-starred in teleplay Share the Dream, a tale of a factory worker couple with opposing views on workplace politics.  

By 1997, the Americans had arrived in Auckland in the shape of Rob Tapert’s fantasy series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (to be followed by Xena: Warrior Princess and Young Hercules). In season two of Hercules, Tobeck was cast as Strife — the self-proclaimed God of Skirmishes. He would appear in more than 20 episodes across the three franchises. Working on Hollywood-level productions was an education, but it was a challenge that Tobeck believes the local crew quickly rose to. "Oh my god, there’s 60 people around and I’ve got to act with the tennis ball with the masking tape on it! I think that was part of our education, getting thrown in the deep end and just having to do it."

It was on Hercules that Tobeck met an actor who would become a major influence, and a close friend — the late Kevin Smith (who played Ares). "Kevin was the full package. He had the looks, he had the talent and he was the loveliest sweetest man." Tobeck and Smith were invited to a number of overseas fan conventions, they also played together in band the Wide Lapels, with comedian Willy de Wit and musician Rikki Morris.

Eventually, the call for Tobeck to try his luck overseas could no longer be ignored. "I begrudgingly went to Australia," he recalls. "I had a real issue with leaving New Zealand for some reason." Tobeck had worked with Sam Neill on Perfect Strangers in 2003 and Neill offered to introduce him to his Australian agent. Offers started to come in from across the Tasman; one of the first was for a TV movie to be directed by Neill himself, The Brush-Off, co-written by fellow Kiwi John Clarke. His other Australian roles include acclaimed  movie Little Fish, and multi-awardwinning family drama Tangle. Tobeck has also scored a number of American roles — the most high profile being a high-ranking Real IRA member on Sons of Anarchy.

Kevin Smith had been set to play Frank-N-Furter in a revival of The Rocky Horror Show. But with his passing in February 2002, the role was handed to his close friend. "I felt it was the role I was born to play." Robert Bruce asked Kevin Smith’s American agent to catch the musical. The agent was so impressed, he recommended that Tobeck move to LA. "So I went over there and I spent a long time on and off for a few years auditioning a lot, and working a bit. I don't know if Herc and Xena necessarily catapulted me to America, but I think my years of experience on those shows really helped me in the States."

In recent years, the trend in Kiwi television towards telling stories plucked from the headlines has led Tobeck to playing more real people than before — including Superintendent Sam Hoyle in 2012 telemovie Siege (about the 2009 Napier standoff with gunman Jan Molenaar), All Black coach Laurie Mains in miniseries Jonah, and Robin Bain in 2020 series Black Hands, for which he won an NZ Television Award for Best Actor.

Tobeck doesn’t like to do too much research into real people, partly so as to avoid consciously impersonating a person’s voice or mannerisms; but as a self-confessed "rugby obsessive", he was happy to spend a couple of in-depth hours with Mains to talk about that crucial period of New Zealand rugby history. Over the years, Tobeck has also been called on to play his share of villains — including roles in Ash vs Evil Dead, Spartacus: House of Ashur  and various American cop shows.

Over the years, Tobeck his won awards for Topless Women Talk About Their Lives in 1997, Lawless (playing the villain) in 1999 crime drama Alibi (as a priest) in 2019, and Black Hands, plus a number of nominations. While grateful for the recognition such awards bring to a production, he is wary of the attention it brings on himself. Overexposure is a constant career risk for successful actors in Aotearoa, and Tobeck believes awards can sometimes lead to the phone not ringing (at least temporarily).

Like most actors in New Zealand, Tobeck has various strategies for keeping food on the table, inbetween the rare ongoing roles (like One Lane Bridge). He’s an accomplished voiceover artist – he began voicing radio adverts at age 16 — and was the voice of late racing driver Bruce McLaren in documentary McLaren.

Tobeck also leads classes for younger actors. He considers himself lucky to have been able to watch performances at Mercury Theatre while working as an usher, an opportunity that is less common for today's young actors. Instead, they have YouTube. "In our day we had to practice by ourselves doing the accent...I mean, my daughter's American accent at 18 is way better than mine was when I was 18!"

Profile written by Dan Slevin; published on 9 June 2025

Sources include
Joel Tobeck
'Joel Tobeck: on playing the bad guys..' (Video Interview), NZ On Screen website. Director Andrew Whiteside. Loaded 21 January 2014. Accessed 21 May 2025
Joel Tobeck website. Accessed 21 May 2025
Jo McCarroll, 'Maths glitch takes sheen off Prime rating triumph' (Interview) - The Sunday Star-Times, 24 March 2002, page F7
Channelling Baby website. Accessed 21 May 2025
Sure to Rise press kit