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It's no doubt that Amazon's The Boys has put Karl Urban in the spotlight once again, but he's been dominating roles for several decades. Starring in storied franchises like Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, and Thor, Karl Urban has the ability to inhabit any character he takes on. Which is to say, even though he's been working steadily for decades, we still think Karl Urban should be bigger. Perhaps his turn as Billy Butcher in The Boys will continue to push him to new heights after it ends with it's next season.
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At the turn of the century, New Zealand women had had the vote for seven years
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If you happen to catch this episode of the New Zealand television show, Pioneer Women, when it first aired in 1983, you probably wouldn't have guessed the kid
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peeping in that window would grow up to be Judge Dredd. Your crimes are multiple homicide in the manufacture and distribution of narcotics
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How do you plead? He would also deliver memorable, nuanced performances in iconic franchises like the
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Riddick movies, The Bourne franchise, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, Marvel, and lately, The Boys
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It was really only recently that the world started properly appreciating the greatness that is Carl
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Urban. You all right? I mean, just when you think this s*** can't get any more horrible
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Nah, don't worry. Get a little more horrible. Carl Urban's first real professional acting job
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would come when he played a heroin addict on the 1990 police procedural Shark in the Park
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But it was his role as teenage underachiever Timothy Johnstone in the 1992 drama series
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Homeward Bound that would turn out to be his big break. That part would earn him a spot in the cast of the drama Shortland Street
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where he would gain attention playing an openly gay paramedic. What would become increasingly clear as his career went on is that Carl Urban is
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first and foremost, a skilled character actor with the chameleon-like ability to disappear
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into his roles. It's a talent that would be put to fun use in 1997 when Urban landed his roles of
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both Cupid and Julius Caesar on Hercules, The Legendary Journeys. This is where American
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audiences were most likely to get their first look at the actor, and he continued to play both parts
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on the popular spinoff Xena, Warrior Princess. Urban acted in the 2000 comedy The Price of Milk
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which would be his first leading role. After seeing a rough cut of the film
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director Peter Jackson quickly cast Urban as the Rohan warrior, Eomar, in the last two installments
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of his Lord of the Rings trilogy. With a cast for the ages, it wasn't easy to shine through in the
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Rings films but despite limited screen time Urban managed to imbue the fiercely loyal Eomar with heart and personality I would cut off your head dwarf if it stood but a little higher from the ground
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Audiences connected with the character, and for the first time, the world at large took note of Carl Urban
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But likely because the Rings films were adventure movies, where he mostly rode around on horseback threatening people with a sword
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the roles Urban were offered in its wake were all action parts that took advantage of his intense looks and ability to seem convincing in a fight
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First and always, I am a necromonger commander. So if you're here to test my loyalty, you succeed only in testing my patience
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In 2004, for example, he played a foil for both Vin Diesel's titular hero in The Chronicles of Riddick
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and Matt Damon's titular hero in The Born Supremacy. Those weren't bad parts, but in and of themselves, they didn't really hint at what the actor was capable of
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Neither did his starring role as the hero of the poorly received 2005 movie adaptation
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of the video game Doom, which, despite boasting Dwayne the Rock Johnson in its cast
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was a critical and box office disappointment. And the dull 2007 Viking adventure Pathfinder, which was received even more poorly than Doom
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certainly wasn't doing much for his reputation as a dramatic actor or a box office draw
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Compounding the problem was that Urban had taken one too many action roles, and he knew it
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In his own words, the thing about Hollywood is that once you've proven you can do something
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you keep getting offered that thing. And the danger is, if you keep accepting that, then you very quickly get typecast
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Luckily for us, he heard that director J.J. Abrams was preparing a cinematic reboot of
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the Star Trek franchise. As a fan of the original series, Urban reached out to the director to set up a meeting
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The actor thought the meeting went terribly. I may throw up on you. I think these things are pretty safe
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Don't pander to me, kid. One tiny crack in the hole and our blood boils in 13 seconds
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But two months later, Abrams contacted him about reading for the part of Dr. Leonard Bones McCoy
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originally played by DeForest Kelly. Delighted by the prospect of a role that not only wasn't an action part
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but also let him play comedy for the first time since The Price of Milk, Urban apparently rocked his audition
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He would find out he got the part within the hour and once the movie came out it was easy to see why Such technology could theoretically be manipulated to create a tunnel through space Dammit man I a doctor not a physicist
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Though it probably came as a surprise to fans who associated him solely with his tough-guy
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parts, Urban was able to channel Kelly's iconic performance in a recognizable way
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while still making the part of Bones all his own. His take on the character delighted audiences
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and drew attention to something that had gone greatly unnoticed by most of the world for nearly
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two decades. Carl Urban is really a brilliant character actor. The ease with which he was able
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to drop his action hero shtick and slip into the peaceful, albeit cantankerous, personality of
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McCoy made it suddenly clear that Urban's ability to transform himself into his characters was being
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criminally underexploited by his action roles. Even within the action
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genre, Urban has proven incredibly proficient at differentiating his characters. The vibe of
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Amar of Rohan, for example, is completely different than the vibe of the Russian Kurel
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It's a skill that's ironically made his characters memorable while making the actor himself easy to
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forget. The near anonymity was one of the reasons he was so perfectly cast as the title character
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in 2012's Dread. The judge is famous for never removing his helmet, but most stars, like, uh
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say, Sylvester Stallone, would probably demand to show their face anyway. I never go to law! I am the law
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However, Urban's character actor humility let him keep the helmet on, instead finding other ways to bring out the judge's personality
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The movie bombed, but its star still delivered a memorable performance that would be echoed years later in Pedro Pascal's Beneath the Mask turn in The Mandalorian
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I can bring you in warm, or I can bring you in cold
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Similarly, Thor Ragnarok's scourge, the executioner, was a relatively small supporting part
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The kind of thing a lot of actors might have passed on after playing the leads in other big time studio films
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I even named them. Des and Troy. You see when you put them together they destroy But when Taika Waititi asked him to play the role Urban in his own words immediately recognized that there was actually something profoundly emotionally compelling about this character journey that was imminently relatable
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Intrigued by those aspects of the part, he signed on despite its limited screen time
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I just want a chance to prove myself. But if Star Trek was the movie that finally made the world really take notice of Carl Urban's
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fearsome character acting skills, it's his performance as the snarky and charismatic Billy
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Butcher on The Boys that finally convinced people to see him as a bonafide star
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How many nannies shake their babies? I'm sorry? You know, a good hard shake, like trying to get ketchup out of a bottle
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Landing on Amazon Prime in July of 2019, the hyper-violent R-rated satire of superhero
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universes follows a team of vigilantes that take on rogue superheroes, or supes. Butcher is an
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ex-government agent with an axe to grind against those supes. In Urban's hands, the character comes
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off as a complex and layered anti-hero who uses one-liners and action hero bravado to paper over
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his deep emotional damage. If there is some geezer up there with a big white beard, he's a world
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heavyweight c***. I'm sorry, did you just call God a C word? Yeah. As the center of the show, Urban has
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incredible chemistry with pretty much everyone else in the cast, and as always, the actor
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disappears completely into his role. Tell me where the hell you disappeared to before
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Oh, I just had to pop down to the shop. I was running a bit low. I'll mind your own f***ing business
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The show was so good, it quickly became the streamer's most popular original series and
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one of the first non-Netflix shows to crack the then-new Nielsen Top 10 Streaming Shows list
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It would grow its audience nearly 90% in its second season, and by its third season, it
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was a full-blown crossover hit. And while Anthony Starr's Homelander has shocked and captivated audiences
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Urban's instantly iconic performance as Butcher has continued to electrify viewers and be celebrated by critics
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And for us, we're just some fans of movies and TV who are delighted to see an actor who's
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been churning out stellar performances since his earliest days finally getting his flowers
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Better late than never, we suppose. Now, you keep your nose clean, Sunshine
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or I'll come back and stomp you