Hugh Keays-Byrne

Hugh Keays-Byrne (18 May 1947 – 2 December 2020) was a legendary British-Australian actor and film director who has left a lasting mark on the entertainment industry. His career spanned from the Royal Shakespeare Company to post-apocalyptic blockbusters like Mad Max and Farscape. Keays-Byrne was born in Srinagar, India to British parents, although he spent most of his childhood in Britain. He started his career as a stage actor in the Royal Shakespeare Company, before beginning a successful transition to television and film in 1967 with Boy Meets Girl. He had several iconic roles, including the menacing Toecutter in Mad Max (1979) and Grunchlk in Farscape (1999-2003). Both of these roles were made even more remarkable by the fact that Keays-Byrne had to travel to Melbourne on a motorcycle for the former and famously dubbed over with a bad American accent in an international print of the movie! However, it was his return to the Mad Max franchise in 2015 with Mad Max: Fury Road that truly cemented his place in cinematic history. As the villainous Immortan Joe, his menacing presence and incredible performance earned him an MTV Movie Award nomination for Best Villain and the film an astounding 10 Academy Award nominations, winning 6 in total! Keays-Byrne’s legacy will live on for many years to come, and he will be remembered as one of the greatest villains of all time. After all, as he himself said, “It’s not easy being bad!”