Karl Urban
| 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.
- Pinecity - Livejournal for Chris Pine/Karl Urban RPF
Fanworks about Karl Urban's characters
- Urban Reveries - Karl Urban fanfiction archive (het and slash)
- AresJoxerCupidStrife - website for Ares/Joxer and Cupid/Strife slash (HtLJ/XWP)
- The Caesarfic List - Julius Caesar fanfic, mostly slash
- There are a number of Xena/Caesar enemy het vids on YouTube[3]
- Éomer Slash Archive
- see Kirk/McCoy
Fan Sites
- Karl Urban International forum and [karlurbaninternational.tumblr.com Tumblr] - latest news and images
- Karl Urban Kiwi Net website and forum
- The Karl Urban Page (*defunct as of 2014*)
- Karl Urban Online - mostly news and screencaps
- The Cupid Wing - Karl Urban's characters on XWP
- Shrine of the Urbanites - example of an old Karl Urban fan site and a member of the Karl Urban webring[1]
- Urban Bliss
References
- ^ Bret Ryan Rudnick. WarriorCon - September 12-14, 1997, in: Whoosh! On the Road. (Accessed 25 July 2010)
- ^ Bret Ryan Rudnick. An Interview With Karl Urban, in: Whoosh! #24, September 1998. (Accessed 25 July 2010)
- ^ For example Xena and Caesar - A Roman Affair (trailer about Xena and Caesar's relationship) or Xena/Caesar - Aftermath.