Mr. Edgerton, who is Australian, also wrote and starred in this summer’s surprise hit “The Gift”—and directed it, his first feature. He plays a California man who seems to be stalking an old high school friend and his wife ( Jason Bateman and Rebecca Hall). Before it opened, “The Gift” looked like one more cheap horror movie, but critics praised its psychological depth and smart twists on the genre. The film cost $4.7 million, has earned over $40 million so far and is still going five weeks into its run.
American audiences first noticed Mr. Edgerton in 2010, when he appeared in the crime-family drama “Animal Kingdom,” made with his colleagues in the Australian filmmaking collective Blue Tongue. He wrote and starred in the police thriller “Felony” (2013), with Tom Wilkinson. In his higher-profile acting work, Mr. Edgerton played a member of the SEAL team in “Zero Dark Thirty.” He has emerged unscathed from some critical bombs. He was Tom Buchanan in Baz Luhrmann’s “Great Gatsby” and the Pharaoh Ramses in Ridley Scott’s “Exodus: Gods and Kings.”