Tom Long

Born: August 3 1968

Where: Boston, Massachussets, USA

The onetime sheep shearer has given impressive performances in movies including the comedy The Dish and the controversial Book of Revelations.

He was born in America while his Australian parents - his father is a flying doctor - were working in Boston but was raised back in his parents' homeland.

Raised on a farm near Benalla, New South Wales, he left school early, moving to Queensland to shear sheep and break horses before heading overseas.

He made his TV debut with a minor role in the 1992 movie The Leaving of Liverpool and his first big screen appearance came two years later in the romantic drama Country Life.

Back in Australia, he landed a role in the Tv series Echo Point and went on to appear in the movie Doing Time For Patsy Cline alongside Richard Roxburgh and Miranda Otto.

After being initially rejected from Sydney's National Institute of Dramatic Art he was accepted second time round, graduating in 1996.

In 1999, he starred with the late Heath Ledger in the comedy crime thriller Two Hands before playing Angus Kabiri in the Austrlian TV series SeaChange.

Feature roles followed with the rom-com Strange Planet with Naomi Watts and the crime thriller Risk.

However, it was The Dish, a sweet-natured 2000 comedy about the Apollo moon landings and their effect on a remote Australian radar station, that made his name.

The following year he appeared in the family comedy Hildegarde with Richard E Grant and went on to land a regular role in the police TV drama Young Lions.

Recent work includes the part of a ballet dancer who is kidnapped in the big screen adaptation of Rupert Thompson's Book of Revelation.