Joel Edgerton

Deauville Tal­ent Award

Actor, screen­writer, direc­tor and pro­duc­er, Joel Edger­ton has estab­lished him­self as one of the most dis­tinc­tive fig­ures in con­tem­po­rary cin­e­ma, build­ing a dense and eclec­tic body of work that mir­rors his mul­ti­fac­eted artis­tic journey.

On the occa­sion of its 51^st edi­tion, the Deauville Amer­i­can Film Fes­ti­val is proud to hon­or the sin­gu­lar career of an artist whose path bridges per­for­mance, cre­ation, and production.

Born in Black­town, Aus­tralia, Joel Edger­ton began on stage after train­ing at the Nepean Dra­ma School. He made his screen debut in the mid-1990s in his native coun­try, before gain­ing inter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion for his role as Owen Lars in Star Wars: Episode II and Episode III.

He quick­ly stood out as an actor capa­ble of por­tray­ing com­plex, demand­ing char­ac­ters. His fil­mog­ra­phy includes intense roles in Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thir­ty (2012) and Scott Cooper’s Black Mass (2015); a pro­fes­sor turned MMA fight­er in War­rior by Gavin O’Connor (2011); a wealthy heir in Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gats­by (2013); and a man in love with a Black woman in seg­re­gat­ed Amer­i­ca in Lov­ing by Jeff Nichols (2016), a per­for­mance that earned him a Gold­en Globe nomination.

In 2015, he suc­cess­ful­ly stepped behind the cam­era with the thriller The Gift, in which he also starred in. Three years lat­er, his sec­ond fea­ture as a direc­tor, Boy Erased, fea­tur­ing Lucas Hedges, Rus­sell Crowe and Nicole Kid­man, con­firmed his skill in both sto­ry­telling and direc­tion. A screen­writer on all of his direc­to­r­i­al projects, he also co-wrote The Rover (2013) and The King (2019), both direct­ed by David Michôd.

More recent­ly, he played the main role in Mas­ter Gar­den­er by Paul Schrad­er, The Boys in the Boat by George Clooney and the Apple TV+ series Dark Mat­ter. As a pro­duc­er, he was involved in the doc­u­men­tary Daugh­ters, which won an award at the Sun­dance Film Fes­ti­val, the Net­flix minis­eries Boy Swal­lows Uni­verse, and fea­ture film The Plague direct­ed by Char­lie Polinger, which pre­miered at the last Cannes Film Fes­ti­val and in which he also stars.

After Michelle Williams, Natal­ie Port­man and Michael Dou­glas in 2024, the Deauville Amer­i­can Film Fes­ti­val con­tin­ues its cel­e­bra­tion of out­stand­ing artists this year by pre­sent­ing a Deauville Tal­ent Award to Joel Edger­ton. The trib­ute will take place on Thurs­day, Sep­tem­ber 11, fol­lowed by a spe­cial screen­ing of Train Dreams, an adap­ta­tion of Denis Johnson’s novel­la which will be aired in Novem­ber on Net­flix, direct­ed by Clint Bent­ley and star­ring Joel Edger­ton along­side Felic­i­ty Jones.

Sev­er­al of Joel Edgerton’s most icon­ic films will also be screened through­out the Fes­ti­val, offer­ing audi­ences a chance to (re)discover his remark­able work on the big screen.