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Stuart Townsend (born December 15, 1972) is an Irish actor. Born in Howth, County Dublin, Ireland, Stuart is the son of a Protestant father and a Catholic mother; he was raised Catholic. Older brother to Lucas Townsend that currently resides in Minnesota. His younger brother was put into a foster home when he was four years old, and his parents signed away their rights for the child when he was seven.

Like fellow Irish actor Colin Farrell, he attended the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin where he made his non-professional stage debut in the school's production of Tear Up The Black Sail. His professional stage debut was in 1994's True Lines, directed by John Crowley, who later directed Intermission. True Lines was first performed in Kilkenny; it later moved to the Dublin Theatre Festival and on to Bush Theatre in London.

Townsend's early movie roles were in Irish short films such as "Godsuit" and "Summertime". His first part in a feature length film was Trojan Eddie, a 1996 UK/Irish co-production. In 1997 he landed a lead role in the British film Shooting Fish, which really propelled his career.

After his appearance as the outrageous seducer in the title role of About Adam, he started to be noticed in the United States by critics and the public alike. In the summer of 2000, he briefly returned to the London stage in the Tennessee Williams play Orpheus Descending, starring as Val Xavier, alongside Helen Mirren as Lady Torrance.

In recent years he has appeared in a number of big budget films including Queen of the Damned, opposite Aaliyah, as the vampire Lestat de Lioncourt; and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen as Dorian Gray.

In 2005 Townsend starred alongside Gabrielle Union in Night Stalker, the 2005 remake of the 1974 ABC TV series Kolchak: The Night Stalker. He played the part of Carl Kolchak, an investigative reporter looking into his wife's murder. Night Stalker was abruptly cancelled by ABC after six episodes due to bad viewing figures.

Townsend currently resides in Los Angeles with his long term girlfriend Charlize Theron, whom he met while filming Trapped in 2001. Theron and Townsend have publicly stated that they will not marry until such time as same-sex marriage is legal in the United States.

Trivia

• He left the Peter Jackson production of the The Lord of the Rings after just four days of filming. He maintains that he was miscast and was too young for the role of Aragorn. He was replaced by Viggo Mortensen. Interestingly, within the Richard III Society, Stuart Townsend became the most commonly considered actor to possibly portray the King in a sympathetic biopic after Mortensen was written off as too old. Townsend does bear a startling resemblance to the arch-top portrait of Richard III.

• His father, Peter Townsend, was a professional golfer.

• There is quite a large age gap between Stuart and his siblings. His brother, Dylan, is 13 years younger than him and his sister, Chloe, is 15 years younger, his oldest brother Lucas is 11 years older.

• He has a half-brother named Hugo and half-sister named Ella; his father remarried in 1997 after Stuart's mother died in 1994.

• He appeared in an episode of Will & Grace where he played a pansexual employee of Karen Walker's.

• Stuart Townsend is also the name of a character in Anne Rice's "The Witching hour"

• He also dated actress Parker Posey

Selected filmography

• Chaos Theory (2007) (pre-production)
• The Best Man (2006) ... as Ollie Pickering
• Head in the Clouds (2004) ... as Guy
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003) ... as Dorian Gray
• Shade (2003) ... as Vernon
• Trapped (2002) ... as William Jennings
• Queen of the Damned (2002) ... as Lestat de Lioncourt
• About Adam (2000) ... as Adam
• Mauvaise passe (1999) ... as Tom
• The Venice Project (1999) ... as Lark/Gippo the Fool
• Wonderland (1999) ... as Tim
• Simon Magus (1999) ... as Dovid Bendel
• Resurrection Man (1998) ... as Victor Kelly
• Under the Skin (1997) ... as Tom
• Shooting Fish (1997) ... as Jez
• Trojan Eddie (1996) ... Dermot

External links

• Wonderful Stuart Townsend. Over 6,000 pictures, updated often
• Stuart-Online.com, a fansite
• Interview about Head In The Clouds
• Stuart Townsend MSN group

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