Karl Urban
From Memory Alpha, the free Star Trek reference.
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Karl Urban (born 7 June 1972; age 36) is an actor hailing from Wellington, New Zealand who is to play Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy in the upcoming Star Trek. [1] Initial reports claimed that he had been offered the role of a Romulan villain in the film, but these were later debunked. [2] [3]
Urban may be best known for his portrayal of Éomer in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. He played the role in the second and third installments of the trilogy, The Two Towers and The Return of the King. Among the other Star Trek alumni who appear in these films are Brad Dourif and John Rhys-Davies.
Educated at St. Mark's Church School in Wellington, Urban attended the Victoria University of Wellington for a year before leaving to pursue a professional acting career. Shortly thereafter, he began appearing on the hit series Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, both of which were filmed in his native New Zealand. Between 1996 and 2001, Urban appeared in twelve episodes of Xena and two episodes of Hercules, playing four different characters, primarily those of Cupid and Julius Caesar. He even played a character named Kor, not to be confused with the Klingon of the same name.
Urban's casting on Star Trek means that he will again be working with Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, the writers and two of the executive producers of Star Trek. Both Orci and Kurtzman were writers and co-executive producers on Hercules and Xena. In addition, Urban already has one connection with Star Trek: The Original Series – he co-starred with Walter Koenig (the original Pavel Chekov) in an unsold science fiction pilot called The Privateers.
Urban's early film credits included Heaven (1998), The Irrefutable Truth About Demons (2000), and The Price of Milk (2000). His first Hollywood film was 2002's Ghost Ship. Following his success on The Lord of the Rings he had supporting roles two 2004 summer blockbusters, The Chronicles of Riddick and The Bourne Supremacy. He then played the lead role in the 2005 adaptation of the video game Doom, opposite Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, and more recently played the lead in the Viking film Pathfinder, co-starring Clancy Brown.
Urban was recently seen as Woodrow Call in the CBS mini-series Comanche Moon. He also filmed the crime drama Black Water Transit with Bill Cobbs. He is currently attached to star in the 3-D action film Relentless, about a group of extreme sports professionals who are trapped in the Amazon jungle and hunted by homicidal natives. [4]
[edit] External links
- Karl Urban at Wikipedia
- Karl Urban at the Internet Movie Database
- Karl Urban Online
- The Karl Urban Page
- Resume at NowCasting.com
- Urbanites, a Karl Urban forum
