Sullivan Stapleton

Sullivan Stapleton is an Australian actor who is best known for his roles in the SKY (BSkyB)/Cinemax/HBO television series "Strike Back" and the 2010 Sundance Film Festival selection "Animal Kingdom."

Stapleton was the lead role in the 2014 film "300: Rise of an Empire," as the Greek leader Themistocles.

Stapleton, a native from Australia, was 8 years old when he and his younger sister Jacinta Stapleton, who was 6 at the time, joined an acting and modeling agency. His picture caught the attention of a director who then invited him to be in his short film (about high school dropouts at a party where girls were dying, without the graphic violence). Pleased by his performance, the director qualified him as gifted and encouraged him to pursue acting.

Stapleton received training at Melbourne's St. Martin's Theater. He studied drama and theater at Sandringham Secondary College (in Sandringham, Victoria, Australia). He got his actors' union card at the age of 9 (in 1986) and at the age of 11 he started working in ads. His first onscreen acting performance was in the 1994 Australian TV-movie "Baby Bath Massacre" as Adrian.

Between acting jobs, Stapleton did several types of work: modeling, cleaning animal cages in a pet shop, working as a grip (taking care of the camera equipment) in a considerable number of films and TV productions ("The Elephant Princess," "Rush," "Tangle") in front and behind the camera, working on building sites and assisting carpenters.

Before landing a role as Josh Hughes in Australia's soap opera "Neighbours" in 1998, he appeared in a string of little-seen features and homegrown dramas. But it was with his performance in the Academy Award-winning film "Animal Kingdom," which premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, that he made an international breakthrough.

When "Animal Kingdom" won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival interest in him sparked on two continents and his career has taken him across the globe. He made his second appearance in the "Underbelly" series, an Australian true crime drama television series. This time he was the lead character, Colin McLaren in "Underbelly Files: Infiltration," an endurance test and the first challenging shoot of his career

Stapleton currently stars in NBC's Drama "Blindspot" (2015) playing FBI agent Kurt Weller.