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Stuart Townsend

Birthday: Dec 15, 1972

Place of Birth: Howth, County Dublin, Ireland

Bio: Born December 15th, 1972, Stuart Townsend would grow up to possess the kind of dark, coolly seductive looks that lend themselves to playing either ladies' men or raving psychos, {Townsend} is one of the more compelling actors to have emerged from Ireland during the 1990s. A native of Dublin, Townsend was born to pro golfer Peter Townsend and Lorna Townsend, a well-known former model who died in 1994. He first became interested in performing through his then-girlfriend, who was studying at the Gaiety School of Acting. Townsend also enrolled at the school and made his stage debut in the school's production of Tear Up the Black Sail. He made his professional stage debut in John Crowley's True Lines. In 1996, Townsend broke onto the screen with his role in Gillies MacKinnon's Trojan Eddie. Portraying a seductive young man who steals away a bride from her groom on their wedding day, Townsend was afforded the opportunity to work with the legendary Richard Harris. His exposure in the film led to his first starring role, in Shooting Fish (1997), a successful comedy which cast him as a sweet-natured con man. That same year, Townsend had a supporting role in Carine Adler's acclaimed drama Under the Skin, engaging in emotional dysfunction and phone sex with the film's heroine. He also made a terrifying impression in the Irish crime thriller Resurrection Man, playing a psychotic killer. Townsend subsequently extended his talents to period drama, portraying an impoverished Jew in 19th century Silesia in Simon Magus (1998) and essaying a dual role in the 16th- and 20th century-set The Venice Project (1999). In 1999, he was also visible in Michael Winterbottom's Wonderland, an ensemble drama that screened at that year's Cannes Film Festival. The turnover to the new millennium found Townsend with some big shoes to fill as he stepped into the role of Anne Rice's staple bloodsucker Lestat (originally portrayed by Tom Cruise in Neil Jordan's Interview With the Vampire (1994)) in 2002. Baring his fangs alongside co-star and title character {$Aaliyah (who perished in an airplane crash shortly before the film opened in theaters) Townsend recieved a fair amount of praise for his role in the film, which was previously rumored to have been heading for a straight to video release. In 2005 he joined the cast of ABC's Night Stalker for a role as an investigative reporter determined to catch the person responsible for his wife's murder. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, Rovi

Filmography

Year	Title	Credit
2007	Battle in Seattle	Director
2007	Bloodsucking Cinema	Actor
2007	Starz Inside: Bloodsucking Cinema	Actor
2007	Chaos Theory	Buddy Endrow
2006	The Best Man (Unhitched)	Olly P
2005	Night Stalker	Actor
2004	Head in the Clouds	Guy
2003	Shade	Vernon
2003	The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen	Dorian Gray
2002	Queen of the Damned	Lestat
2002	Trapped	Dr. Will Jennings
2000	About Adam	Adam
1999	Wonderland	Tim
1999	Mauvaise passe (The Escort) (The Wrong Blonde)	Tom
1998	Simon Magus	Actor
1997	Resurrection Man	Victor Kelly
1997	Shooting Fish	Jez
1997	Under the Skin	Tom
1996	Trojan Eddie	Dermot