Noah Taylor

A talented performer who successfully made the transition from juvenile roles to adult performances, Australian actor Noah Taylor broke through in the United States playing the adolescent piano prodigy, David Helfgott, in the Oscar-winning drama, "Shine" (1996). Prior to this success, Taylor had both supporting and leading roles in a number of projects made in his native Australia, while managing to crack through across the Pacific with a role in the television miniseries "Dadah Is Death" (CBS, 1988). After "Shine," he starred in the indie period drama, "Simon Magus" (1999), before appearing in consecutive movies directed by Cameron Crowe, "Almost Famous" (2001) and "Vanilla Sky" (2002). While entering blockbuster territory as Angelina Jolie's sidekick in "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" (2001) and its sequel "Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life" (2003), Taylor delivered his most complex and critically acclaimed performances as a pre-Nazi Adolf Hitler in the unrelenting drama, "Max" (2002). From there, he settled into a series of foreign and independently made features like "The Proposition" (2006) and "Submarine" (2010), none of which received much play in the States. Regardless, Taylor remained a talented performer capable of tackling a wide variety of offbeat characters in either supporting or leading roles.