Eric Bana’s Next Act
In 2000, Eric Bana starred in an Australian movie based on the life of a notorious criminal and folk hero named Mark Brandon “Chopper” Read, a goateed, silver-grilled biker who boasted of murdering almost 20 people in Melbourne in the 1970s and ’80s. Bana brought to life Read’s unique brand of charisma and psychopathy in a way that somehow evoked both revulsion and sympathy. The performance was career-making, and anyone who saw it knew Bana was put on earth to be a movie star.
Since Bana has spent nearly two decades in Hollywood playing tortured souls—think Avner in Hector in and King Henry VIII in —all while conveying an affability and genuineness), Bana has defined his career on his own terms. These days you’ll find him in smaller but pivotal parts in big-budget blockbusters—the villain Nero in 2009’s and as Uther Pendragon in this month’s directed by Guy Ritchie— and in meaty leading roles in brainy indie films, such as the upcoming opposite Forest Whitaker.
