Sam Worthington

Actor

• Born: August 2, 1976
• Place of Birth: Godalming, England

Contribution: Sam Worthington is an Australian actor best known for his starring roles in the films Avatar (2009), Terminator Salvation (2009), Clash of the Titans (2010), Hacksaw Ridge (2016), and Avatar: The Way of Water (2022).

Background

Samuel Henry John Worthington was born on August 2, 1976, in Godalming, Surrey, England, to Jeanne J. Martyn and Ronald W. Worthington. While he was still an infant, his parents moved him and his sister to the Rockingham suburb of Perth, Australia, where he would spend the majority of his young life. His parents were supportive of their son, but he had trouble determining the path he wanted to take in life. At the age of seventeen, he dropped out of high school. His father, a power plant worker, gave him some money and sent him to Cairns, on the other side of the country, so that he could find his own way.

Worthington performed a wide range of odd jobs before eventually becoming a bricklayer. At the time, he had no interest in acting, but his then girlfriend was an aspiring actor, and he accompanied her to an audition for Sydney’s National Institute of Dramatic Art, Australia’s premier school for the performing arts. On a whim, Worthington auditioned for the school as well and was accepted, though his girlfriend was not. The two separated shortly thereafter. Worthington graduated from the institute at the age of twenty-two.

Career

Worthington’s early career mostly consisted of local film and television projects, although he had small roles in a few Hollywood films, such as Hart’s War (2002) and The Great Raid (2005). He has said that he did not take his acting seriously at the time, treating it like any other job. Even when his turn in the independent film Somersault (2000) won him critical acclaim as well as an Australian Film Institute Award for best actor, he still felt as though he was not trying hard enough.

Needing a change, Worthington sold almost all of his belongings and began living out of his car. He also started seriously auditioning for new projects. At one casting call, Worthington was given only a few lines to read and did not know anything about the character he was reading for, or even that the role was a starring one; he simply read his lines and went home. Later, however, he got a call from the casting agents: the audition was for Titanic director James Cameron's latest major production, and Worthington was being seriously considered for the lead. He immediately flew to Los Angeles for a formal audition.

Although he was under consideration to play James Bond in Casino Royale (2006) at the time, Worthington was still considered a relative unknown and was therefore seen as an unlikely candidate for a James Cameron blockbuster. Aside from his starring role in Macbeth (2006), a modern Australian interpretation of the Shakespeare play, and his turn in Somersault, he had few major credits to his name. However, after his audition for what would become the massively successful 2009 film Avatar, Cameron insisted on Worthington, and the studio agreed.

Worthington’s new role in Cameron’s science-fiction epic immediately opened the door to him for other roles; while he was still working on Avatar, for example, Cameron recommended Worthington to director McG, who was assembling the cast for Terminator Salvation (2009), the fourth film in the popular Terminator franchise. Cameron, according to interviews, was particularly impressed with Worthington’s exceptional work ethic during a production that required grueling hours and conditions.

Worthington’s ability to carry a major action film quickly landed him other parts. A year after Avatar, he had yet another starring role, that of the Greek hero Perseus in the reboot of the 1981 fantasy film Clash of the Titans (2010). He also won a leading role in the 2012 drama Man on a Ledge. Unlike his previous blockbusters, Man on a Ledge relied less on special effects and more on acting and character development. The film stars Worthington as an ex-convict who is suspected in a major theft and threatens to jump from a tall building until he is proven innocent. Worthington, a self-professed acrophobe, had to perform many of his scenes on an actual building ledge over two hundred feet high.

During 2009 and 2010, Worthington appeared in five major films released within only a few months of one another, including the espionage thriller The Debt (2010) and the romantic drama Last Night (2010). His performances during this period were variously well received and panned by critics; Clash of the Titans, for example, performed fairly well, but Worthington’s performance was seen as wooden. Worthington himself has admitted that his acting in the film was at best bland. Still, his appeal was not diminished, and in 2012, he reprised his role as Perseus in the sequel, Wrath of the Titans. He then returned to his roots for the Australian film Drift (2013), which portrays the emergence of the modern surfing industry along Australia’s west coast in the 1970s.

In August 2013, James Cameron announced that he was planning several Avatar sequels. In the meantime, Worthington continued to find work on a wide range of other projects. After appearing in four films in 2014 alone, including Sabotage and Cake, he secured a role in the true-crime drama Kidnapping Mr. Heineken, which hit theaters in 2015. That same year, he joined the large cast of the film Everest, portraying survivor Guy Cotter in the cinematic representation of the mountain climbing disaster of 1996. In addition to his part in the Academy Award–nominated war film Hacksaw Ridge (2016), he went on to star in the drama The Shack and the action film The Hunter's Prayer in 2017. His next project, the Netflix sci-fi thriller The Titan (2018), was not particularly well reviewed, and his 2019 Netflix thriller Fractured also garnered a mixed reception.

The long-awaited Avatar sequel arrived in 2022. Worthington reprised the role of Jake in Avatar: The Way of Water. He also had roles in the Kevin Costner films Horizon: An American Saga—Chapter 1 and Horizon: An American Saga—Chapter 2. After the first Western, released in June, failed to make an impact at the box office, the studio postponed the release of the second installment, which had been slated to arrive in theaters in August. The studio reportedly planned to stream the first installment to try to build an audience for and interest in the second.

Worthington, meanwhile, returned to work on the third film of a planned five in the Avatar franchise. He joined Cameron in 2024 in announcing the title of the third film: Avatar: Fire and Ash. The movie was planned for a December 2025 release.

Impact

Sam Worthington did not plan to become an actor, but his compelling screen presence, his devotion to his roles, and his willingness to challenge himself have given him a reputation as a major Hollywood star. His turns in major film franchises as well as his other successful films have contributed to the high demand for his services.

Personal Life

Worthington bought a home in Hawaii in January 2012. He married model Lara Bingle in 2014. They are the parents of sons Rocket, Racer, and River.

Bibliography

Becker, Amy. "Sam Worthington Would 'Do Anything' for James Cameron." ABC7, 20 Aug. 2024, abc7news.com/post/sam-worthington-would-do-anything-james-cameron/15209851/. Accessed 25 Sept. 2024.

Dow, Steve. “Once More from the Top.” Sydney Morning Herald. Fairfax Media, 4 Feb. 2012. Web. 22 Aug. 2013.

Gomez, Luis. “Interview: Sam Worthington Manly on a Ledge, but Not in Front of TV.” Chicago Tribune. Tribune, 27 Jan. 2012. Web. 22 Aug. 2013.

Hawkins, Joanne. “Sam I Am.” Daily Telegraph [Sydney]. News, 27 Aug. 2006. Web. 22 Aug. 2013.

Law, Jeannie. "Actor Sam Worthington Says 'The Shack' Helped Him Understand Relationship with God (Interview)." The Christian Post, 5 Mar. 2017, www.christianpost.com/news/actor-sam-worthington-the-shack-relationship-god-interview.html. Accessed 31 Oct. 2019.

Le, Nam. “Is Sam Worthington the Greatest Actor of Our Time?” Esquire. Hearst Communications, 5 Aug. 2009. Web. 22 Aug. 2013.

Lipworth, Elaine. “Sam Worthington on Man on a Ledge.” Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group, 4 Feb. 2012. Web. 22 Aug. 2013.

McClintock, Pamela. "Kevin Costner's 'Horizon 2' Pulled from August Release in Theaters After First Film Flops (Exclusive)." The Hollywood Reporter, 10 July 2024, www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/kevin-costner-horizon-2-removed-from-theatrical-calendar-1235937513/. Accessed 19 Sept. 2024.

Miles, Jonathan. “The Two Faces of Sam Worthington.” Details. Condé Nast, Apr. 2010. Web. 22 Aug. 2013.

"Sam Worthington." IMDb, 2024, www.imdb.com/name/nm0941777/?ref‗=fn‗al‗nm‗1. Accessed 19 Sept. 2024.