Richard Roxburgh
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| Richard Roxburgh | |
| Born | January 1, 1962 (age 45) Albury, New South Wales, Australia |
Richard Roxburgh (born January 1, 1962) is an Australian actor, who has starred in many Australian films and has appeared in prominent supporting roles in a number of Hollywood productions, usually as villains.
He appeared in a large number of Australian film and stage productions through the 1990s, including a critically acclaimed turn as Hamlet in the 1994 Company B production at the Belvoir St Theatre. His first supporting role in an international blockbuster was in Mission Impossible 2 in 1999, but it was perhaps his eyecatching role as a villain in Moulin Rouge! in 2001, that attracted attention. In 2004, he went on to play the diabolical role of Count Dracula in Van Helsing. In 2005, it was announced that Roxburgh would be directing his first film entitled "Romulus, My Father" that is due to be released sometime in 2007.
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[edit] Background
Roxburgh was born in Albury, (the 16th largest city of Australia) on the New South Wales-Victoria border. Richard's family is mainly of English descent. He is the youngest of six children of an accountant.
He went to the Australian National University in Canberra to study economics before deciding to be an actor. He also attended NIDA.
He currently lives in coastal New South Wales. He also has a flat in Notting Hill, London.
[edit] Romances
He dated Australian actress Miranda Otto for some time. He then had a relationship for a number of years with journalist Storm Theunissen. He is now married to Italian actress Silvia Colloca, who he met on the set of, Van Helsing, where he played an enchanting role of Count Dracula and she as one of his beautiful brides, Verona.
[edit] Trivia
- Richard assumes a different accent and octave-level for every character that he plays, with his character's voices ranging from the wimpy, ridiculous screech he used as the Duke for "Moulin Rouge" to his rich, deep Romanian accent as Dracula in "Van Helsing." In the opening sequence of Mission Impossible 2, Richard uses an American accent to impersonate the airline pilot and then switches back to an unusually bad South African accent when it is revealed that he is a terrorist. In The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, he switches between three accents: high-class British, Cockney and German. In the little known British film "The One and Only", he convincingly affects a Geordie accent (no mean feat).
- Like Christopher Lee and Frank Langella, Richard has portrayed Dracula and Sherlock Holmes in movies. Unlike them, he played Sherlock Holmes before playing Dracula.
- He appears in two films where Victorian British characters are altered in an action packed fantasy settings. These movies where "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" (2003) and "Van Helsing" (2004).
- The mouth piece he wore as the Fantom in "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" (2003) distorted his voice so much that he had to redub his dialogue for the film's release.
- He has played Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty in two different films.
- Has directed plays in Australia
- portrayed notorious former NSW detective Roger Rogerson in the acclaimed ABC-TV crime drama miniseries Blue Murder.
- Along with Orson Welles, the only actor to have played Sherlock Holmes, the detective's main antagonist Professor Moriarty and Count Dracula.
[edit] Movie credits
His credits include:
- Romulus, My Father Director (2007)
- Like Minds (2006)
- Fragile (2005)
- Stealth (2005)
- Van Helsing (2004)
- League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)
- The One and Only (2002)
- The Touch (2002 film) (2002)
- The Hound of the Baskervilles (2002) (TV)
- Moulin Rouge! (2001)
- Mission: Impossible II (2000)
- Passion: The Story of Percy Grainger (1999)
- In The Winter Dark (1998)
- Thank God He Met Lizzie (1997)
- Children of the Revolution (1996)
