The Australians who conquered Hollywood: how they did it - difficulties, failures and success

Australians have long become their boyfriends in Hollywood: they come to the Dream Factory with their whole families, win Oscars, star in commercials and direct high-profile films. We remembered 11 guys from the Green Continent who conquered America.

Russell Crowe

Glory: "Gladiator"

Recent projects: "Water Seeker", "Fathers and Daughters", "Nice Guys"

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Despite the fact that Russell Crowe was born in New Zealand, he always considered his homeland to be Australia, where his family moved when Crowe was 4 years old. When Russell was five, he was taken on an episode of the Skyforce series, and as a teenager he began acting in series (including episodes of the famous "Neighbors") and took part in independent films ("Crossroads", "Proof", "Skinheads"). which allowed him not only to win several film awards in Australia, but also to be targeted by American directors.

Crowe's talent was noticed by Sharon Stone and invited him to the film "The Fast and the Dead" (Stone produced and starred in it). In 1999, Crowe got into the biopic "Own Man", for the sake of which he gained 23 kilograms. The effort was worth it: the actor was nominated for the Golden Globe and Oscar for the first time. And in 2001, Crowe received the long-awaited Oscar and worldwide recognition thanks to Ridley Scott's Gladiator. By the way, Ridley and Russell later worked in four more films: "Good Year", "Gangster", "Body of Lies", "Robin Hood".

In Hollywood, Crowe became famous not only for his acting talent, but also for his bad character. In the early 2000s, he constantly quarreled with colleagues on the site, argued in front of the public with the doorman, or even started a fight with the staff. The explosive temperament of the celebrity was even ridiculed in the cartoon "South Park" and in the fourth part of "Scary Movie". However, over the years, the Australian has significantly settled down: he quit smoking and alcohol and began to pay more attention to directorial work.

Russell Crowe and other stars who live "normal" lives

Crowe has repeatedly said that for him living in Los Angeles is like spending the night at work. According to the actor, he needs to wake up at sunrise and be able to wander barefoot on the grass under the trees. Among the Hollywood stars who live modestly are Russell Crowe. The actor gave himself such an opportunity by leaving to live with his family in Australia on his own farm. He now visits Los Angeles exclusively for work. He is also completely indifferent to new models of modern cars and loves his old jeep.

Mel Gibson

Glory: "Braveheart"

Recent projects: "The Expendables 3"

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Gibson began acting in films while still a student at the National Institute of Performing Arts in Sydney, and the action movie Mad Max helped him to enter the orbit of Hollywood. Once in America, Mel not only became popular, but also began to work on the other side of the camera: he founded his own production company ICON Production and directed the cult films Braveheart (for which Mel received the highest film award as the best director), The Passion of the Christ, "Apocalypse".

By the way, Gibson is also notorious for his unrestrained temperament due to quarrels with women: in 2009, he left his wife with seven children and went to the pianist Oksana Grigorieva, who gave birth to a daughter from Gibson. As a result, the actor did not work out with both: Grigorieva accused the actor of assault, and her wife demanded decent ransom money from the artist. These scandals could not but affect the career of Mel, who has become much less invited to work in the past ten years.

Heath Ledger

Glory: "Ten Reasons to Hate", "A Knight's Story"

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While still at school, Heath (by the way, the full name of the actor is Heathcliff - his parents named him after the hero from the novel "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte) participated in theatrical performances and headed the acting troupe. At 17, from his hometown of Perth, he moved to Sydney, where he began acting in films. Three years later, Ledger decided to conquer America and acquired a Hollywood agent.

Notable roles were not long in coming: he starred in the military drama Patriot, the romantic comedies Ten Reasons of My Hatred and The Story of a Knight, and immediately became everyone's favorite. Along with youth films and melodramas, Ledger paid attention to independent cinema, trying to choose complex characters (for example, in the films Four Feathers, The Kelly Gang, Sin Eater). Most of the noise was caused by the drama about gay cowboys Brokeback Mountain, for which Heath was prophesied to be an Oscar. The actor got off with only a nomination, but firmly established himself on the stellar Olympus as an actor of a serious genre.

Before his sudden death in January 2008, Ledger managed to complete work on "The Dark Knight" and began filming in "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus." The cause of death was a fatal cocktail of painkillers, sleeping pills and tranquilizers that caused cardiac arrest. For the role of the Joker in "The Dark Knight", which partly caused the deep depression and death of the artist, Heath was posthumously awarded an Oscar.

Liam and Chris Hemsworth

Glory: The Hunger Games, Thor

Recent projects: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay. Part 2 "," Avengers: Age of Ultron "

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The youngest of the Hemsworth brothers, Liam, was the first to conquer Hollywood. The guy was noticed after the romantic melodrama "The Last Song" and a whirlwind romance with Miley Cyrus and was invited to the saga "The Hunger Games".

Ambitious and energetic Liam encouraged middle brother Chris to try his hand in America too. By that time, Chris had only a few Australian TV series, but the actor decided to try his luck in Los Angeles. His appearance allowed him to play the god Thor in the Marvel blockbuster, which earned him sex symbol status and many roles in high-budget films (The Avengers, Snow White and the Huntsman, The Elusive). Now it is the turn of the oldest brother, Luke, who is so far famous only in Australia, but plans to join relatives who have firmly settled in the United States.

Hugo weaving

Glory: "The Matrix"

Recent projects: "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies", "Foreign Land", "Dressmaker"

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Hugo Weaving spent his childhood and adolescence in three countries at once: his parents, due to their professional activities (my mother worked as a guide, and my father worked as a seismologist), constantly moved between Nigeria, England and Australia. In the mid-70s, the family finally settled on the Green Continent, where Hugo graduated from high school, and later the National Institute of Dramatic Arts in Sydney. Since the end of the 80s, the artist began to receive roles in film and television. One of the films of the novice actor - the drama about a blind young man "Proof" - especially liked the Wachowski brothers, and they invited Hugo to play the main villain in "The Matrix". The role of Agent Smith was physically difficult for the actor: due to episodes with fights, he knocked out a disk in his spine and suffered from bouts of nausea. But all the suffering paid off with fees and fame.

Hugo met Wachowski 9 years after the end of The Matrix - in the film Cloud Atlas, where the artist reincarnated as six characters at once.

The next long-running project on the way of Weaving was "The Lord of the Rings": as the elf Elrond, he starred in three parts of the film, and then in the trilogy "The Hobbit".

Hugh Jackman

Glory: "X-Men"

Recent projects: "Robot named Chappy", "Peter Pan"

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Hugh Jackman did not immediately come to the acting profession. After completing his bachelor's degree in journalism, he decided to try another field and studied for a year in theater courses in Sydney, and then went to the Western Australian Academy of Arts. The training paid off: Jackman began getting roles in TV shows and musicals, for which he was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award. But the romantic comedy "The Hero of Her Novel" brought Hugh real popularity in Australia.

In 2000, Jackman was invited to the American X-Men project. His hero - the mutant Wolverine - was so loved by viewers around the world that two separate films were devoted to his story.

And Hugh earned critical acclaim thanks to his favorite genre of musical. For the musical production of The Boy from Oz on Broadway, the actor received the Tony, DramaDesk and OuterCriticsCircle awards (at the same time, three awards make up the so-called "triple crown of Broadway"), and for his role in Les Miserables, the actor was nominated for an Oscar and received a Golden Globe.

Eric Bana

Slava: "Troy"

Recent projects: "Deliver us from the evil one", "The Knights of the Round Table: King Arthur"

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Eric Bana was born in a suburb of Melbourne to a Croatian and German family. In his youth, Eric was a car washer, a courier, and a bartender, until chance determined his fate. In 1991, Bana was making cocktails at an event at a prestigious hotel and was asked to joke on stage. So the artist discovered his comedic talent and began performing in stand-up shows in small pubs. The producers of the series "Front View" drew attention to the young man, which helped the artist to become famous throughout the country. After working on the show for three years, Eric decided to change his role and aimed at dramas. His most successful work was the film about the real-life murderer from Australia, Mark Reed.

To reincarnate as a criminal, Eric spent a couple of days in the company of Reed himself, endured a daily five-hour make-up (numerous tattoos were applied to his body), shaved his head and gained 13 kilograms. This dedication has earned several Australian film awards and propelled the actor to the Hollywood level.

The real success in Bana's career can be considered the role of Hector in the blockbuster "Troy". After this project, the actor's filmography was replenished with high-budget films "Another of the Boleyn Family", "The Time Traveler's Wife", "Star Trek".

Simon Baker

Glory: "The Devil Wears Prada"

Latest project: TV series "The Mentalist"

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Simon Baker also got into the world of cinema by accident. After school, he was going to become a doctor and even studied to be a nurse, but gave up this venture, carried away by filming. The fact is that Baker constantly went with friends to auditions and often got roles in TV shows. Success at home spurred him to conquer America. Already the first American film with the actor - the thriller "Secrets of Los Angeles" in 1997 - was noticed by critics and received an Oscar for Best Screenplay.

Over 18 years of his American career, Simon became his man in Hollywood: he starred in the films Ring 2, The Story of the Necklace, The Devil Wears Prada, became the face of Givenchy perfume, made friends with Australian stars (Nicole Kidman and Naomi Watts are godparents mothers of his daughters), finally moved to Los Angeles and received American citizenship.

However, the serials allowed Simon to really distinguish himself: for the show "The Protector" and "The Mentalist" the artist was nominated for the "Golden Globe".

Sam Worthington

Glory: "Avatar"

Recent projects: "Cake", "Avatar 2"

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Samuel Worthington has two citizenships: British (he was born in Surrey) and Australian (the actor moved to the Green Continent at the age of 17).

As a child, Sam began to go to school of dramatic art, although at first he did it not out of love for the theater, but to get to know girls.

Sam was also forced to enter the National Institute of Dramatic Arts in Sydney because of his love for a woman: after graduating from high school, he moved to Australia, where he decided to study acting in company with his girlfriend. Worthington's beloved did not pass the entrance exams, but Sam easily passed the selection. In parallel with his studies, the actor managed to appear in serials and participated in theatrical performances.

At the beginning of the 2000s, the artist's career went uphill: after the American drama "Hart's War", Samuel began to be more willingly invited to the shooting. And Worthington's talent was revealed to the whole world after starring in James Cameron's Avatar.

Basically, the actor is offered the role of pumped-up fighters (he played Perseus in "Clash of the Titans", a cyborg in the fourth "Terminator", a special agent in "Payback"), but there is in his filmography and drama. For example, the independent painting "Cake" with Jennifer Aniston.

Guy Pearce

Glory: "The King Speaks!"

Recent projects: "Genius", "Equals", "Results"

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Guy Pearce also has two citizenships: he was born in England, but at the age of three he moved to Australia with his family. The childhood of the future actor can hardly be called happy: the mother had to raise children alone (Pierce's father died in a plane crash), and the actor's sister Tracy was born with Down syndrome.

As a teenager, Pierce caught fire with the idea of becoming an actor and actively began to go to castings.

“For me, acting was a way of survival, it was an escape from reality. The opportunity to go on stage, say the lyrics and put on the costumes that have been chosen for you is a great excuse to live your life,”the artist later admitted in an interview with the Telegraph newspaper.

Pierce was lucky to get into the popular TV series Neighbors. After this project, Guy became a celebrity in his native Australia and decided to act in the big meter. His film debut was The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, in which the actor played a gay drag queen.

The film became a sensation in Australia and far beyond its borders, which was reflected in Pierce's career. Dozens of job offers in America fell on him, but the artist was always careful in choosing characters: he was looking only for multifaceted personalities with complex psychological experiences. Such were the amnesiac killer in Christopher Nolan's detective "Remember", the cop ready to lay down colleagues in the thriller "Los Angeles Secrets", the pop art artist in the biopic "I Seduced Andy Warhol" and the tramp in "The Rover."

Among the art-house projects in which Guy is used to working, there are also high-budget films: "The King Speaks!", "Prometheus", "Iron Man 3" and the TV movie "Mildred Pierce", for which the artist received an Emmy.

Geoffrey Rush

Glory: Pirates of the Caribbean

Latest project: "Gods of Egypt"

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By the end of school, Jeffrey finally decided to become an actor, so he entered the University of Queensland at the Faculty of Art. Rush consolidated this knowledge in France at the school of mime Jacques Lecoq. Returning to Australia, the actor joined one of the theater companies and began to actively play in plays, for which he received several awards.

In the early 80s, the artist turned to cinema. Jeffrey always approached the choice of roles with all responsibility, and his instinct did not disappoint: the Australian biographical drama "Shine", in which the artist starred in 1996, brought him "Oscars", "Golden Globes" and the attention of American directors. Rush became famous as a participant in costumed films about bygone eras: for the sake of Shakespeare in Love, he reincarnated as theatrical entrepreneur Philip Henslow; in "Elizabeth" played the queen's minister; in "Pere Marquis de Sade" entered the image of the scandalous writer of erotic novels. The new round in Rush's career was the blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean. The resourceful pirate Barbossa performed by Rush is in no way inferior in popularity to Jack Sparrow.