Joel Edgerton

Did You Know?

• Edgerton's mother is a Dutch immigrant born in The Hague.
• He was in a relationship with Olympic Gold medalist Cathy Freeman from 2003 to 2005.
• His twins with Christine Centenera were born in May 2021.

Career

Joel Edgerton built his early film career with roles in Erskineville Kings, King Arthur, and Ned Kelly. He first entered the Star Wars universe as a young Owen Lars in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, later returning to the character for the Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi. On television, he played Will on The Secret Life of Us, a performance that earned him an AACTA Award in 2002. In 2005, he provided the voice for the title character in the animated short The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello, which was nominated for an Academy Award, and also appeared in the British comedy Kinky Boots as the son of a deceased shoemaker. He had a role in the 2006 film Smokin' Aces.

The following year, he appeared in Whisper, and then worked on The Square, which he co-wrote and which was directed by his brother Nash Edgerton. He also appeared in Acolytes and Separation City. In 2009, he took on the role of Stanley in the Sydney Theatre Company's production of A Streetcar Named Desire, later performing the same part at the Brooklyn Academy of Music that December. He played Barry Baz Brown in the 2010 crime drama Animal Kingdom, winning an AFI award.

In 2011, he starred as fictional MMA fighter Brendan Conlon in Warrior. That same year, he played helicopter pilot Sam Carter in Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.'s prequel to The Thing, having been cast in February 2010. He portrayed Tom Buchanan in Baz Luhrmann's 2013 adaptation of The Great Gatsby, and received the 2011 Australians in Film Breakthrough Award for his international work. In 2013, it was announced that he and David Michôd were collaborating on a screenplay adaptation of Shakespeare's Henriad plays for Warner Bros. Pictures.

In 2014, he played Ramesses II in the biblical film Exodus: Gods and Kings. He took on multiple roles for the thriller The Gift, released in August 2015, serving as director, star, writer, and producer; the film earned 60 million dollars against a 5 million dollar budget. He co-starred in Black Mass that same year as John Connolly. In 2016, he appeared in two Jeff Nichols films, Midnight Special and Loving, and in 2017, he played Officer Nick Jacoby, an orc police officer, in the film Bright.

Philanthropy

For years, Joel Edgerton has served as a prominent ambassador for the Fred Hollows Foundation, a nonprofit that provides training and tools to surgeons in underserved regions to prevent needless blindness. He visited Nepal in 2012 and witnessed sight being restored. Edgerton has called his activism with the foundation a welcome break from the materialistic side of acting.