Samuel Henry John Worthington (born 2 August 1976) is an Australian actor who has worked in both independent Australian cinema and Hollywood. He rose to prominence in Australia with performances in the films Bootmen (2000) and Somersault (2004), receiving Australia Film Institute Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role nominations for both films and winning the latter, and gained further recognition through his role in the TV series Love My Way. Worthington achieved international fame as protagonist Jake Sully in James Cameron’s Avatar (2009), the highest-grossing film of all time, and received a second AFI award for the film; he reprised his role in its sequels.
He also starred in other studio productions including Terminator Salvation (2009), Clash of the Titans (2010), and Wrath of the Titans (2012), while voicing the lead character Alex Mason in the popular Call of Duty: Black Ops video game series. In the 2010s and beyond, Worthington diversified his roles with appearances in the films Everest (2015), Hacksaw Ridge (2016), and The Shack (2017), and received critical praise for his television work in Manhunt: Unabomber (2017) and Under the Banner of Heaven (2022). Continuing to balance commercial and character-driven projects, his recent credits include Lift (2024), The Exorcism (2024), and the Horizon: An American Saga western series.
Samuel Henry John Worthington was born in England to British parents. They moved to Perth, Western Australia, when he was 6 months old.
He was raised in Warnbro, a suburb of Perth. His mother, Jeanne J. Worthington (née Martyn), is a housewife, and his father, Ronald W. Worthington, is a power plant labourer. He has a sister, Lucinda.
Worthington attended Rockingham Senior High School and John Curtin College of the Arts, a high school specialising in the dramatic arts, located in Fremantle, Western Australia, where he studied drama but did not graduate. After leaving high school, his father gave him $400 and sent him on a one-way trip to Cairns, Queensland, telling him to "work his way home". He began working on construction and odd jobs, eventually settling in Sydney. At the age of 19, while working as a bricklayer, he auditioned for the National Institute of Dramatic Art and was accepted with a scholarship.
2000–2008: Australian recognition
Worthington played a small role alongside Adam Garcia in the Australian dance film Bootmen (2000). He played a lead roles in the Australian movies Dirty Deeds (2002) and Gettin' Square (2003).
Worthington had a major role in Somersault (2004), for which he won the AFI Award for Best Lead Actor. He was well known in Australia for his role as Howard in the acclaimed TV series Love My Way, in which he played the female lead's main love interest. In 2006, he played the lead in a modern retelling of Macbeth. Worthington's international film career began with a series of small roles in Hollywood production The Great Raid (2005), which was filmed in Australia. He auditioned for the role of James Bond in Casino Royale but lost the role to Daniel Craig. He starred in the Australian creature-feature film Rogue (2007), which gained a 100% fresh rating from Rotten Tomatoes.
2009–2012: Avatar and early momentum
In 2009, Worthington starred in James Cameron-directed science-fiction film Avatar, in which he played the role of Jake Sully, a paraplegic former U.S. Marine who is at the centre of a war between his own species and the indigenous Na'vi people of Pandora. The film was a success, amassing critical acclaim and several accolades. It became (and remains) the highest-grossing film of all time, grossing more than $2.8 billion ($4.1 billion adjusted for inflation) worldwide. It won him the Saturn Award for Best Actor and another AACTA Award.
In November 2010, Worthington told GQ Australia that when he auditioned for the role, he was not told what it was for, which annoyed him. "I was a bit pissed off, and I think that came across. I think Jim saw a spark and liked it because that's Sully's character – a guy who doesn't like to be bullied and a guy who wants to set things right." He later said that Cameron "changed his life" and he will always be grateful to him.
After auditioning for Cameron, Worthington consequently landed the part in 2009's science fiction action film Terminator Salvation, thanks to Cameron's personal recommendation to fellow filmmaker McG. In the film, Worthington co-starred alongside Christian Bale and played Marcus Wright, a human-terminator hybrid. Terminator Salvation was released on May 21, 2009, grossed over $371.4 million, and received mixed reviews.
In early 2010, Worthington appeared in Clash of the Titans, an action fantasy film directed by Louis Leterrier and produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Worthington headlined the film. It received generally negative reviews from critics but grossed $493 million worldwide and was the 11th highest-grossing film of 2010. He provided voice work for Captain Alex Mason, the protagonist in the video game Call of Duty: Black Ops. Some gamers criticised Worthington's inability to mask his Australian accent, as in Avatar. In November 2010, The Hollywood Reporter named Worthington as one of the young male actors who are "pushing – or being pushed" into taking over Hollywood. Also in 2010, Forbes named Worthington among Hollywood's highest grossing actors. He was selected as one of the entrants to the Who's Who in Australia 2011 edition.
In 2012, Worthington starred in Wrath of the Titans, the sequel to Clash of the Titans. The film received mostly negative reviews from critics, and although it grossed $302 million at the box office and emerged successful, the film underperformed compared to its predecessor. He reprised his role as Alex Mason in Call of Duty: Black Ops II. Also in 2012, Worthington starred as Nick Cassidy in Man on a Ledge, a suspense-thriller film directed by Asger Leth. Though the film received mixed reviews from critics, Worthington's performance received praise, with The New Zealand Herald describing him as "suitably terrified".
In 2013, Worthington worked in Drift (2013), an Australian film about the birth of the surf industry in the 1970s. He starred alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Hollywood action thriller film Sabotage (2014). A loose adaptation of the Agatha Christie novel And Then There Were None, it received generally negative reviews and was a box office bomb. Worthington next appeared in the drama film Cake (2014). Headlined by Jennifer Aniston, it debuted in the Special Presentations section of the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival. In the same year, he played a supporting role in the western film The Keeping Room.
In 2015, Worthington starred in Paper Planes, an Australian 3D children's drama film directed by Robert Connolly. The film tells a story about Dylan, a young boy who lives in Australia, who finds out that he has a talent for making paper planes and dreams of competing in the World Paper Plane Championships in Japan. He followed it up by playing Willem Holleeder in Kidnapping Freddy Heineken (2015), based on the 1983 kidnapping of Freddy Heineken. He portrayed a character in Baltasar Kormákur's Everest, based on the 1996 Mount Everest disaster; the film was a commercial success, grossing $203 million worldwide.
In 2016, he played Captain Jack Glover, a stern army officer, in the Mel Gibson directed biographical war film Hacksaw Ridge. The film focuses on the World War II experiences of Desmond Doss, an American pacifist combat medic who refused to carry or use a weapon or firearm of any kind. Hacksaw Ridge was released in the United States on November 4, 2016, grossing $180.4 million worldwide, and received critical acclaim. The film was awarded several accolades. Worthington worked with Stuart Hazeldine on The Shack, a 2017 American Christian drama film. Based on the 2007 novel of the same name, it opened to mixed critical reviews and was a success, as it grossed over $96 million worldwide. That year, Worthington portrayed Jim Fitzgerald in the Discovery Channel television series Manhunt: Unabomber.