Four years ago, Australian actor Sam Worthington sold his house, packed two bags — one for books, one for clothes — and set out on a Hollywood trip backward through time.
First, he spent 18 months playing an intergalactic explorer in James Cameron's futuristic sci-fi feature Avatar, set for release in December. Then he appeared as renegade mystery man Marcus Wright, opposite Christian Bale, in Terminator Salvation's near-future nightmare world. Now Worthington is four weeks into production on ancient mythology remake Clash of the Titans.
"I've been working on Titans for two weeks and I'm more bruised and battered than I ever was on Terminator," says Worthington during a break from filming earlier this month. "We take on Medusa, we take on the witches and we just kill everything else. It's a bit brutal."
The 32-year-old actor had only one requirement when approached about the role of lead monster-slayer: "I told them, I'm not wearing a toga, bugger that,” he says. “You can't look manly in a toga. Sorry."
Worthington seems to have sprung out of nowhere to become the It Guy for big-screen action spectacle. In fact, the former bricklayer spent nearly a decade learning his craft Down Under.
"That was my apprenticeship," says Worthington. "My belief has always been that you do as much as you can in your own country so you can then sit in a room with James Cameron or McG and have something to offer."
Worthington had no show biz aspirations until age 19, when he attended his girlfriend's acting-school audition. "For moral support, I auditioned too," Worthington says. "I got in, she didn't. A week later, she dumped me."
While shooting Avatar in New Zealand, Worthington signed on for Terminator Salvation when McG came calling. To get into character as the hardened time-traveler roaming the post-Judgment Day wasteland, Worthington drew inspiration from an unlikely source.
"I looked at Marcus as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz," he says. "Here's a person wakes up in another world and finds himself, like he's on a yellow brick road. He finds the heart, the brain, the fucking sensitivity, whatever, from the Tin Man — all these characters you meet along the way, and you get to Skynet, which is Oz.... That's why I wear a blue coat. Dorothy wears a blue dress. Things like that are stuck into the film. Alice in Wonderland, same thing. That's how I approached the character."
Post-Terminator, Worthington, who is living temporarily in Los Angeles with a few pals, literally jumped at the chance to swing a sword in Clash of the Titans, directed by Louis Letterier (The Incredible Hulk) for 2010 release.
"When I read the script I started jumping around the bed with a ruler," he says. "I had a take on it, which I explained to Louis and the studio, and they were mad enough to let me loose and see if it can work. My job is to bring the heart."
See also:
- Terminator Salvation’s Not for Wussies, Sam Worthington Says
- Review: Loud Terminator Salvation Makes for Grim Spectacle
- Evolution of a Killer Franchise — The Terminator (1984-????)
- Creator James Cameron on Terminator's Origins, Arnold as Robot, Machine Wars
- Juiced-Up Script Changed Bale's Mind About Terminator Salvation
