Kiwi actor Marton Csokas is 46 today!
Csokas (pronounced ‘Cho-kash) is known to Lord of the Rings fans as the elf Celeborn, Lord of Lothlorien and husband of Galadriel (Cate Blanchett). He appeared in two films from the trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring and The Return of the King.
Csokas was born in Invercargill, but spent some of his childhood in Sydney, Australia. He probably gets his artistic flair from his Hungarian father who is a trained opera singer and was once a trapeze artist in the Hungarian circus. Apart from playing Prince Charming in a primary school production of Sleeping Beauty, where he struggled with his green crepe costume, Csokas had little to do with the theatre until he went to university. There he became involved with a writer’s club and theatre company which led to him switching from studying art history and American literature at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand to the New Zealand Drama School in Wellington. He graduated in 1989.
Csokas developed a love for classical stage drama and co-founded The Stronghold Theatre. He appeared in television’s Shortland Street before being cast in the Peter Jackson production Jack Brown Genius. He came to the attention of American audiences in his role as Borias in the television show Xena: Warrior Princess.
Csokas has many films to his credit including The Bourne Supremacy, XXX and Kingdom of Heaven. He received best supporting actor from the Australian Film Institute for his role in Romulus, My Father.
Despite his success in films, Csokas continues to return to the theatre. In 2007 he appeared in Riflemind with Hugo Weaving, a fellow elf from Lord of the Rings. Csokas was nominated for best actor in the Sydney Theatre Awards for his work in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Csokas can currently be seen in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and has a film Pawn out next year.
Here’s wishing Marton a very happy birthday from Middle-earth Network.
Photo by Andrewmaccoll at en.wikipedia [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC-BY-SA-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5-2.0-1.0)], from Wikimedia Commons
