NOAH TAYLOR
Noah Taylor has an odd little CV and at one point it looked as though his career would be weighed under by roles in coming-of-age tales. Luckily, that phase seems to have passed and a 'new' Taylor has emerged in films such as director/writer Cameron Crowe's homage to 1970s rock, Almost Famous (which opens today).
Taylor (below) was born on September 4, 1969, in London to journalist parents and spent some of his early years living in the UK and New Zealand. By the time he was five, however, his family had moved to Australia and settled in Melbourne.
Taylor says he spent those early days dreaming of becoming a spy or a commando but acting was what he turned to when - at 16 - he decided school had become too much. He threw his lot in with Melbourne's acclaimed St Martin's Youth Theatre and left home. Although his professional debut as a stage actor would not come until March 1997 (with a role in a production of Chekhov's The Seagull), Taylor's time at St Martin's was still well-spent. It led directly to his breakthrough role, that of the tormented Danny Embling in John Duigan's wonderful rites-of-passage tale,The Year My Voice Broke (1987). With the success of that film - and of its sequel, Flirting (1991) - Taylor found himself in demand but more often than not, it was for the role of tormented, sensitive youth. 'I'm like a damaged prostitute: if you want something slightly broken, slightly soiled, you can get it right here,' he told Time Out.
In response to his new-found fame, Taylor decided to cover himself in tattoos - a decision that would cause many problems on the set of the film that brought him international fame, 1996's Oscar-winning tale of the life of troubled pianist David Helfgott, Shine (1996). Taylor played Helfgott as a teen and a pivotal scene where he is beaten in the bath by his father had the make-up department working overtime to cover his body art.
From Shine, Taylor drifted in and out of work - spending some time waiting on tables in Sydney while playing in his band, Honky Tonk Angels - but in the past two years he has re-emerged in a varying number of roles, including that of the rock band manager in Almost Famous and Lara Croft's sidekick in the soon-to-be-released Tomb Raider.