Richard Roxburgh

Known primarily in his native Australia for playing the leading man, actor Richard Roxburgh gained recognition with U.S. audiences for his scenery-chewing performances in several delightfully villainous roles. Roxburgh won critical acclaim for his based-on-fact portrayal of a corrupt cop in the miniseries "Blue Murder" (Australian Broadcasting Association - ABC, 1995), as well as his feature film performance in "Doing Time with Patsy Cline" (1997). Despite his homegrown success, it would be a supporting role as a sadistic henchman in the Tom Cruise action sequel "Mission: Impossible 2" (2000), followed by his sniveling, dastardly turn as the rodent-like Duke in Luhrmann's "Moulin Rouge" (2001) that brought Roxburgh international attention. Temporarily finding his forte in Victorian-era genre fare, he took on a string of iconic characters in the films "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (PBS, 2002), "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" (2003), and "Van Helsing" (2004). Roxburgh also established himself as a talented director on the award-winning biographical drama "Romulus, My Father" (2008). As he moved freely from Australian-produced film and TV projects to major Hollywood studio feature films, Roxburgh proved himself an exceptionally dexterous performer, able to deliver equally impressive performances in the role of leading man or supporting character.