Joel Edgerton’s Star Is On The Rise With Roles In ‘The Odd Life of Timothy Green,’ ‘The Great Gatsby’

Joel Edgerton has a thing about playing dads lately. The Australian actor plans an almost perfect dad in The Odd Life of Timothy Green and a horrible father in The Great Gatsby, but, instead of being typecast in the paternal role, Edgerton has a chance to break out with a couple of big upcoming movies.

Edgerton plays an aspiring father in The Odd Life of Timothy Green where he and his wife, played by Jennifer Garner, have a child mysteriously dropped on their doorstep after they have trouble conceiving. It gives the couple a chance to test out their parenting skills.

The role in The Odd Life of Timothy Green gave the normally tough-guy Joel Edgerton a chance to show another side after roles in mixed martial arts drama Warrior and the 2010 crime thriller Animal Kingdom, Canada.com reported.

The movie also gave Edgerton a chance to think about how much better the world might be if everyone had the innocence that children do. He told Vulture magazine:

“People would have no sense of embarrassment or shame, because kids don’t know what shame is — they have to be taught. I really like kids. I find it strange when people can’t relate to kids, because you were a kid once, you know? And they’re not future- or past-dwelling; they’re really in the present. And they’re playful and they use their imagination. So if the adults had no sense of embarrassment or shame, I think we’d see a lot of silly walks. And people wearing shorts on top of their jeans. No inhibitions.”

For as good a father as he plays in The Odd Life of Timothy Green, Joel Edgerton is set to play a famously uncaring father in Baz Luhrma’s The Great Gatsby. In the movie, he plays Tom Buchanan, husband of Daisy, the object of Jay Gatsby’s affection.

“He’s a lousy husband and an unloving father,” Joel Edgerton tells Vulture. “You almost forget he and Daisy have a little daughter, because she just pops in occasionally but is looked after by the nanny. They’re not really parenting. Tom’s a rogue, among his other unsavory qualities, but he’s still a man, a human being with feelings. I strive for that connection, to understand him.”

Joel Edgerton has a chance to break out as a bona fide star this year with a role in Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty later this year in addition to Gatsby.

Edgerton’s star is on the rise so much that he’s even turned down a role in The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby and just missed out on playing the lead role in The Bourne Legacy, a role he said he would have loved.

“That one wasn’t my decision,” Joel Edgerton said of losing out to Jeremy Renner. “I would have happily done Bourne Legacy, but a lot of decisions are made for you. But sometimes, I can’t imagine myself serving the project well, or I don’t find them as challenging.”