At the world premiere of at Cannes in 2007, American filmmakers Ethan and Joel Coen said they looked for Australian actors to portray tough guys in their film, because, as Joel Coen wryly put it, "they build 'em big down there".
This is certainly true of Sydney-siders Russell Crowe and Hugh Jackman. And now there's a new batch of hunky Aussies coming through in Hollywood.
Just a year younger than Jackman, Jason Clarke is enjoying a career surge at the age of 45. A kind of Tom Hanks Everyman, he made his mark in (2012), (2012) and (2013), and paired up this year with 18-year-old fellow Australian Kodi Smit-McPhee to play an ape-friendly father-son duo in Matt Reeves' .
The Queenslander also will be seen as New Zealand mountaineer Rob Hall in upcoming big-budget adventure film , and is playing John Connor in . Other ongoing projects include supporting roles in Terrence Malick's , and Daniel Espinosa's both due out in 2015.
Another Australian who has been rising rapidly of late is 24-year-old Brenton Thwaites. A surfer guy from Cairns, Queensland, who made his name on television's and , he was most recently seen in an extended cameo as Elle Fanning's prince in .
Thwaites starred last year in , the small-budget horror movie voted best film runner-up in the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival's Midnight Madness section. "Even I was scared watching it," he says. This year, he's in independent sci-fi drama , which screened at Sundance. He's also got onto 's Hot List of stars of the US summer, in part because of the films awaiting release in which he has significant parts.
