David Edwin Woodley was born in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia to Beryl Marcia (Bailey) and John Richard Woodley, a sixth generation manufacturing jeweler. His mother is of French and English decent and his father has English, Irish and French ancestry.Woodley attended St. Patrick's Catholic Boys college and Sandgate District State High School.After only having portrayed a french Can-Can Dancer in an high school Bastille Day celebration, Woodley, this time in pants, took to the stage later in life in local theatre productions in Brisbane and the Gold Coast, Queensland. Woodley performed the role of 'Dangles' in a national tour of Australian playwright Jack Hibberd's, 'Dimboola' before being selected to join the infamous 'Grin and Tonic Theatre Troupe', performing many Shakespearean and Australian contemporary roles under the direction of renown Shakespearean director, Bryan Nason AM. Woodley again performed under Nason's direction in dual roles as Ea and Utnapishtim, in The Royal Queensland Theatre Company's production of the 5000 year old epic of the Sumerian hero, 'Gilgamesh'.Being an avid and competent horseman, Woodley acted in live western stunt shows after being trained by Australian stunt legend, Grant Page (Mad Max) and Canadian born stunt co-coordinator, Ric Anderson (Unbroken). Woodley then moved to the U.K. in 1990 to undertake drama studies at St Catherine's Drama Studio in Guildford, Surrey under the direction of June and Adrian Cooper(BBC). Whilst living in Surrey, he continued his life long passion of fencing, with the University of Surrey's fencing club.On return to Australia, Woodley relocated to Sydney after gaining the role of series regular Hopper Hadley, in the Network 10 television drama Echo Point (1995) . Woodley then went on to become a series regular with the long running Australian series Home and Away (1988) . Woodley has since played roles in many Australian drama series including the award winning ABC TV series Rake (2010) , as well as US productions of Spartacus: Gods of the Arena (2011), and Legend of the Seeker (2008) .Woodley will be seen in the first installment of the much awaited Chinese science fiction trilogy, The Three-Body Problem: I (2017) written by acclaimed Hugo Award winner, Cixin Liu.Woodley holds a Bachelor's Degree (Film).