JOEL EDGERTON was born in Blacktown, New South Wales, Australia. He has appeared in such films as Erskineville Kings, King Arthur, Ned Kelly and Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones and Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith, portraying a young Owen Lars, Anakin Skywalker's stepbrother and Luke Skywalker's uncle.
Edgerton was seen in Lionsgate's mixed-martial-arts drama Warrior, opposite Nick Nolte and Tom Hardy. Edgerton plays Hardy's estranged older brother and Nolte's older son, who is the film's main antagonist. Warrior was released on September 9, 2011. Edgerton also starred in Animal Kingdom, a powerful crime drama that explores the intense battle between a criminal family and the police, and the ordinary lives caught in the middle. The film received the World Cinema Jury Prize for drama at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and Australian Film Institute (AFI) Awards for Best Film and Readers' Choice. For his work on the film, Edgerton was honored with an AFI Award for Best Supporting Actor. In 2009, Edgerton starred as Stanley alongside Cate Blanchett in the Sydney Theatre Company's acclaimed production of A Streetcar Named Desire. Edgerton and Blanchett also performed the play to sold-out audiences at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in November 2009, then at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in December 2009.
Edgerton appeared on Disney's The Odd Life of Timothy Green, in which he starred opposite Jennifer Garner. The fable fantasy centers on a childless couple that is unable to conceive. The couple buries all their wishes for a baby in a box in their backyard. One day, they wake up to find that a child is born, but the child is not all that he appears.
In August 2011, Edgerton starred in the Baz Luhrmann-directed remake of The Great Gatsby, based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's famous novel, for Warner Bros.
Edgerton attended the Nepean Drama School in western Sydney before moving onto various stage productions, most notably at the Sydney Theatre Company, where he performed in Blackrock, Third World Blues and Love for Love, and at Bell Shakespeare, where he performed in Henry IV. On television, Edgerton is known for playing the role of Will in the series The Secret Life of Us, for which he was nominated for an AFI Award.
In 2008, Edgerton was seen in the film The Square, directed by his brother Nash Edgerton. That same year, Edgerton starred in Acolytes, an Australian film about teenagers who take revenge on a serial killer. In 2007, Edgerton was seen in the film Whisper, with Josh Holloway. He also had a significant role in the 2006 American film Smokin’Aces.
In 2005, Edgerton appeared in a lead role, alongside Chiwetel Ejiofor, in the British comedy Kinky Boots, as a deceased shoemaker's son who must find a niche market in the 21 st century. That same year, Edgerton lent his voice to the title character in The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello, an Academy Award® nominated animated short film.
© 2011 Universal Pictures
