Like his predecessor DeForest Kelley, the beloved originator of the role of Star Trek's Dr. Leonard McCoy, Karl Urban comes from a long resume of tough, dark characters and hails from "down south" himself — in this case, south of the equator in New Zealand.

Born June 7, 1972, in Wellington and now a resident of Auckland, Urban broke out of a career on stage, TV and film in his native land with the role of Eomer in the last two chapters of Peter Jackson's cinematic "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, filmed in New Zealand. Movie audiences also know him as Matt Damon's would-be assassin Kirill in The Bourne Supremacy, the second entry in that bigscreen series. Urban lists Eomer and Kirill as his two favorite roles to date, although cult film buffs also recall him as Vaako in The Chronicles of Riddick. TV genre fans too will know Urban from playing both Caesar and Cupid over five seasons in various epsiodes of Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys — also filmed in New Zealand.

The son of a leather goods dealer, Urban opted not to follow his father's work and, after a single-line role on TV at age 8, resumed acting on local theatre stages. He attended school at Victoria University until lured away by the role of a homosexual paramedic on the Kiwi soap opera Shortland Street. Now, Urban has joined his castmates from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King in winning ensemble acting awards from the Screen Actors Guild, the Broadcast Film Critics Association and the National Board of Review.

Now married with a family, Urban counts himself a science fiction fan himself and has guested at several Creation conventions and Atlanta's DragonCon.