Hugh Keays-Byrne Movies, TV Shows, and Filmography
Hugh Keays-Byrne
Acting
Biography
Hugh Keays-Byrne (May 18, 1947 – December 2, 2020) was a British-Australian actor and film director. A former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, he was best known for playing the main antagonist in two films from the Mad Max franchise: Toecutter in Mad Max (1979), and Immortan Joe in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). He also played Toad in the 1974 biker film Stone, and Grunchlk on the science fiction series Farscape. Keays-Byrne was born in Srinagar, in the state of Jammu and Kashmir (part of the British Raj then, India now) to British parents; his family returned to Britain when India was partitioned. He began his career as a stage actor. Keays-Byrne made his first television appearance in 1967 on the British television programme Boy Meets Girl. He was part of Peter Brook's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream with the Royal Shakespeare Company, which toured Australia in 1973. Keays-Byrne decided to remain in Australia after the tour ended. In 1974, he acted in the TV movie Essington, then made his first film appearance in the motorcycle picture Stone (1974). This was followed by supporting roles in films like The Man from Hong Kong (1975), Mad Dog Morgan (1976), The Trespassers (1976) and Snapshot (1979). After his first starring role in the 1978 TV movie Death Train, Keays-Byrne was cast as the violent gang leader Toecutter in Mad Max (1979). Director George Miller had Keays-Byrne and the other actors for the gang travel from Sydney to Melbourne in a group on motorcycles, as there was no money for airplane tickets. In an early international print of the film, Keays-Byrne was dubbed with a bad American accent, which Miller later regretted. Keays-Byrne then continued to act in post-apocalyptic and science fiction films like The Chain Reaction (1980), Strikebound (1984), Starship (1985) and The Blood of Heroes (1989). In 1992, he made his directorial debut and acted in the film Resistance. He also appeared in TV miniseries adaptations of Moby Dick (1998) and Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1999). Keays-Byrne played Grunchlk in the science fiction television series Farscape (1999–2003) and its conclusion Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars (2004). George Miller also cast him as the Martian Manhunter in the planned 2009 movie Justice League: Mortal. Keays-Byrne returned to the Mad Max franchise in the 2015 film Mad Max: Fury Road as the main villain Immortan Joe. The film was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, winning 6, and Keays-Byrne was nominated for the MTV Movie Award for Best Villain. Description above from the Wikipedia article Hugh Keays-Byrne, licensed under CC-BY-SA,full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Filmography Movies
Acting
The Man from Hong Kong
Australian authorities arrest a man believed to be connected to the Sydney criminal underworld and send for Inspector Fang Sing Leng from Hong Kong to question him. After the alleged criminal is assassinated, Inspector Leng and the Sydney police try to hunt down those responsible and hope to solve their case along the way.
Mad Max
In the ravaged near-future, a savage motorcycle gang rules the road. Terrorizing innocent civilians while tearing up the streets, the ruthless gang laughs in the face of a police force hell-bent on stopping them.
Stone
After one of its members witnesses a political assassination, an outlaw motorbike gang becomes the target of a string of murders, prompting a cop to join their ranks to determine who is responsible.
The Chain Reaction
Contaminated by a nuclear-plant spill, an Australian worker hides with a woman and tries to warn the public.
Blue Fin
Based on the children's novel by celebrated South Australian author 'Colin Thiele' , this is an emotional father and son story about tuna fishing of Southern Blue Fin tuna in South Australia's Port Lincoln fishing district. Accident prone son Snook is forever making mistakes much to the chagrin of his father Pascoe. But when tragedy strikes the fishing boat during a deep sea fishing trek in the Southern Ocean, the boy is called on to become a man in a rites of sea passage to reconcile is past mishaps and save both his father and the ship from certain disaster.
Lorca and the Outlaws
Jowitt, a mercenary without recluse institutes a totalitarian regime in a small mining city of an arid planet, Ordessa, helped in that by androids incapable of any emotion. The young Lorca and his android professor, Kid, are both in this tended situation. To find the liberty, they must at any costs seize a spaceship, the "Red Star", but they quickly have to face an android killer...
Snapshot
A young hairdresser enters into the modeling world while fearing retaliation from her puritanical mother and stalker ex-boyfriend.
Strikebound
Via the New York Times: "...reconstructs the true story of a coal miners' strike in the small town of Korumburra in the mid-30's... based on the real-life story of two remarkable characters, Wattie Doig, a miner who became a militant Communist activist, and his wife, Agnes, who progressed from staunch Presbyterianism to membership in the Salvation Army and, finally, to labor organization."
Burke & Wills
A story based on true events about two explorers on a doomed journey trying to cross Australia on foot in the 19 century.
Les Patterson Saves the World
Fat middle aged 24/7 drunkard Les Patterson represents Australia at the UN where his fart literally incinerates an Arab ambassador. Patterson is reassigned to the Middle East so he can be tortured to death by the country he insulted. Patterson's arrival is the prefect distract of a coup and he is spared. At a bar Patterson meets a bio weapons scientist who's developed a horrific disease for the KGB whom plan to distribute it to the Pentagon via toilet seats. Patterson of course is far too drunk to understand anything happening and teams up with Dane Edna to save the world.
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