Karl Urban

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Name: Karl Urban
Also Known As:
Occupation: Actor
Medium: Film, television
Works: Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The Chronicles of Riddick, The Bourne Supremacy, Doom, Star Trek & Star Trek Into Darkness, Dredd, Almost Human, and the upcoming films Pete's Dragon & Thor: Ragnarok
Official Website(s): IMDb page
Fan Website(s): Karl Urban International, Karl Urban Kiwi Net
On Fanlore: Related pages

Karl Urban is an actor from New Zealand who has appeared in multiple films and television shows with large fandoms.

Urban debuted on the fannish radar in 1996 as Cupid on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, becoming a recurring character on both Hercules and sister show Xena: Warrior Princess. In 1997, Urban made his first appearance as Julius Caesar in the Xena episode 'Destiny'. Caesar turned out to be a popular adversary of Xena, and became a recurring character as well. Karl was a guest at Xena conventions such as WarriorCon in 1997[1] and had the opportunity to get to know fandom and fans[2] before winning the role of Eomer in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings, which gained him international recognition and a huge fan following. Following this breakout performance, Urban began to work steadily in Hollywood genre films, appearing in 2004 in The Chronicles of Riddick and The Bourne Supremacy, both fandoms with Yuletide presence.

In 2009, Urban, a self-professed Star Trek fan, portrayed the young Dr. Leonard McCoy in the 2009 reboot of Star Trek, a performance which won him critical and fan acclaim and catapulted him back into the fandom big league. He then starred as the title character in 2012's Dredd, which underperformed at the box office despite good reviews and has become a cult classic among comic and genre fans.

During the 2013-2014 television season, he starred as Detective John Kennex on the Fox near-future sci-fi series Almost Human. Despite a growing and enthusiastic fandom and good ratings, the show was not picked up for a second season.

Urban continues to make several appearances per year at fan conventions in North America, Europe, and Oceania.

In RPF

Karl Urban appears as a character in RPF fanfiction in two fandoms: Lotrips and Star Trek RPF. During his time on Xena and Hercules, real-person fiction was still relatively taboo.

Fanworks about Karl Urban's characters

Fan Sites

References

  1. ^ Bret Ryan Rudnick. WarriorCon - September 12-14, 1997, in: Whoosh! On the Road. (Accessed 25 July 2010)
  2. ^ Bret Ryan Rudnick. An Interview With Karl Urban, in: Whoosh! #24, September 1998. (Accessed 25 July 2010)
  3. ^ For example Xena and Caesar - A Roman Affair (trailer about Xena and Caesar's relationship) or Xena/Caesar - Aftermath.