Joel Edgerton is Richard Loving "They just wanted to love each other and have the right to love each other. And so the movie’s a love story first."

JOEL EDGERTON (Richard) last starred for Loving writer/director Jeff Nichols and with Michael Shannon in the acclaimed Midnight Special, which world-premiered at the 2016 Berlin International Film Festival.

He directed, wrote, produced, and starred in the psychological thriller The Gift, also starring Jason Bateman and Rebecca Hall. The independent feature was one of the critical and commercial sleeper hits of 2015, earning Mr. Edgerton a Directors Guild of America Award nomination for First-Time Feature Film Director.

As actor, he was honored for his performance as Tom Buchanan in The Great Gatsby, Baz Luhrmann’s smash 2013 movie version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel; Mr. Edgerton won Australian Film Institute (AFI) and Film Critics Circle of Australia (FCCA) Awards, and was nominated for an Australian Film Critics Association Award.

Among the films that he has starred in are Scott Cooper’s Black Mass, opposite Johnny Depp, for which Mr. Edgerton was honored with a Virtuoso Award from the Santa Barbara International Film Festival; Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty; Peter Hedges’ The Odd Life of Timothy Green; and Julian Jarrold’s Kinky Boots.

Born in Blacktown, New South Wales, Australia, Mr. Edgerton attended the Nepean Drama School in western Sydney. He went on to appear in various stage productions, most notably with the Sydney Theatre Company in Blackrock, Third World Blues, and Love for Love; the Bell Shakespeare, where he appeared in Henry IV and Henry V; and the Melbourne Theatre Company, in a production of The Pillowman.

In 2009, he returned to the stage to star as Stanley Kowalski, alongside Cate Blanchett as Blanche DuBois, in the Sydney Theatre Company’s acclaimed production of A Streetcar Named Desire. Later that year, the Company performed the play in the U.S. at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM).

He won the FCCA Award for Best Actor for his performance in Kieran Darcy-Smith’s mystery drama Wish You Were Here; and won FCCA and AFI Awards for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in David Michôd’s crime drama Animal Kingdom. Australian television viewers saw Mr. Edgerton starring as Will in the long-running series The Secret Life of Us, for which he was an AFI Award nominee.

Among his other films are Matthew Saville’s Felony, which Mr. Edgerton also scripted and produced; Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings; Anton Corbijn’s Life; Gavin O’Connor’s Jane Got a Gun; and The Square, directed by his brother Nash Edgerton. His brother is directing him anew in an upcoming feature filming in Chicago and Mexico.