Faithful Beat fans know there are only a few thespians who have ascended to our Very Special Beat Pantheon. The first and greatest will always be the One True Bruce Campbell. None shall ever surpass him. Then came Clive Owen, who ruled our links up until the premiere of SIN CITY, when his refusal to pose for a toy put him on our Tragically Flawed list. Then, of course, came dear, dear Gerard Butler, whose declamatory stylings and chiseled physique in 300 have made him an international heartthrob and catapulted him to gossip pages. Let’s just say, we knew him when.
But there is a lesser known member of the Very Special Beat Pantheon who never seems to get into the majors, and that’s Kiwi Karl Urban. While he’s best known as LoTR’s Eomer, we like Karl for his willingness to go to fan shows (an activity which we feel certain he will have ample opportunity to pursue at a later point in his career), his can-do attitude where dropping trou on-stage is concerned, and his extremely photogenic nature.
We’d been hoping to run a nice Karl Urban programme here at SBM leading up to his new film PATHFINDER, which opens this weekend, but to be honest, its been in the can forever, and the reviews are…well, less than one might wish for.
Karl has a chance to redeem himself later this year starring as a cowboy in a LONESOME DOVE prequel, and actually got very good notices for last year’s gritty NZ film Into the Blue, a serious indie film about New Zealand’s first serial killer. It will finally be opening in the US later this year and we’ll probably be checking it out. We probably won’t be checking out PATHFINDER, alas, but we couldn’t let this day go by without SOME mention of Karl, so go to the jump for our Once A Year Tribute to Karl Urban.
It’s too bad we couldn’t get some more momentum going here, because if nothing else, PATHFINDER, the plausible tale of an Indian lad who turns out to be a Viking, would have been a GREAT follow-up to 300’s codpiece fest, as it was something of a thong-a-thon:
What’s your costume like?
“It’s actually kind of funny. The first day I turned up to the costumer, to the wardrobe fitting, the costume lady handed me this little leather kind of thong. I was like, ‘What’s this?’ She said, ‘That’s your costume. Those are your pants.’ I couldn’t believe it. My costume consisted of this leather thong, which then I would put on chaps and they’d tie the chaps to the little leather thong. Within week we were getting notes from the studio, ‘Uh, we can see Karl’s butt. Can you please do something about that?’ So it was almost too authentic.”
What did they cover you with?
“Mud, more leather. I got a bigger leather thong.”
What did they cover you with?
You can see the result in the above still, but we maintain that whatever he’s wearing, he’s still got fabulous eyebrows.
After Riddick, Doom and now Pathfinder, he really should invest in a better agent.
You know, there used to be a time when The Beat would throw a little cheesecake our way. I’m not saying the beefcake is overflowing, but I’m just saying that it used to happen; just an observation.
Don’t forget his appearances on Xena: Warrior Princess as Julius Caesar and, much more importantly, Cupid!
Yep he was really present in Xena. Good actor!
PLEASE can every Friday be KARL URBAN Friday!!!!He’s the most beautiful man to walk this Earth!!!!! LOVE HIM!!!! More KARL! More KARL!!!!!
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