The Queenslander also will be seen as New Zealand mountaineer Rob Hall in upcoming big-budget adventure film , and is playing John Connor in . Other ongoing projects include supporting roles in Terrence Malick's , and Daniel Espinosa's both due out in 2015.

Another Australian who has been rising rapidly of late is 24-year-old Brenton Thwaites. A surfer guy from Cairns, Queensland, who made his name on television's and , he was most recently seen in an extended cameo as Elle Fanning's prince in .

Thwaites starred last year in , the small-budget horror movie voted best film runner-up in the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival's Midnight Madness section. "Even I was scared watching it," he says. This year, he's in independent sci-fi drama , which screened at Sundance. He's also got onto 's Hot List of stars of the US summer, in part because of the films awaiting release in which he has significant parts.

First up will be Based on Lois Lowry's bestselling young adult novel, and co-starring Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep and Taylor Swift, it's directed by Sydney filmmaker Phil Noyce. Next Thwaites plays a 19-year-old ex con in , a crime drama co-starring Ewan McGregor and shot in and around Perth; and there's also the US independent movie, , directed by and co-starring Helen Hunt as his surfer character's mother.

Thwaites has been tapped to be the lead in Alex Proyas' US$150 million blockbuster , whose cast includes fellow Aussies Geoffrey Rush and Courtney Eaton, along with Scotland's Gerard Butler and Danish actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. The action fantasy recently completed shooting at Sydney's Fox Studios. (Proyas also filmed 1998's there.) "I love Alex's movies," Thwaites says, "and I've always dreamt of making a big movie at Fox Studios. This is my biggest movie yet."

In person, Thwaites has that X factor: an easygoing charm and good looks that the camera loves. On the other hand, 28-year-old Australian Jai Courtney has the classical features of a Roman sculpture which, coupled with the heft of a gladiator and a very deep voice, afford him a commanding screen presence.

"To be honest, my physicality is not something I really focus on, though I do struggle with it a bit, because genetically I am quite a big guy," the Sydney-born Courtney says. "So the challenge for me is trying to get small and stay small. When I was shooting I tried to eat lean just to not have some kind of macho presence."

But he had to work out for his "villainous and intimidating" Eric character in t. (He has since completed its sequel, ).

In television series , viewers got to see his honed physique up close, as Courtney played a Roman gladiator. It was perhaps inevitable that he should co-star with the world's most famous gladiator, Crowe, in the latter's directing debut , an A$12 million (HK$87 million) Gallipoli-focused period drama shot in South Australia.

Angelina Jolie also cast Courtney in her second directing effort, , shot in Sydney's Fox Studios. Now Los Angeles-based, the actor was happy to have another stint in his hometown while filming , in which he plays a detective on the tail of another cop played by fellow Australian Joel Edgerton, who wrote the screenplay.