He was born in Fremantle, Western Australia. He gained a scholarship to study theatre at John Curtin College of the Arts and at age 12 was cast in the TV series Ship to Shore. He was accepted into the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts straight out of high school and graduated in 2000.His first break came when he was cast as the lead role in Jewboy, a film that screened at the Cannes Film Festival and Sundance Film Festival for which he was nominated for an AFI Award.In 2007 he was cast by Philip Seymour Hoffman in Riflemind, a play by Andrew Upton which premiered at the Sydney Theatre Company. He was offered a place in the STC Actors Company by Robyn Nevin, and in 2009 won a Helpmann Award and a Sydney Theatre Award for his performance as Prince Hal/Henry V opposite Cate Blanchett in The War of the Roses (directed by Benedict Andrews). In 2008 he played one of the leads in Matthew Newton's Three Blind Mice which won the FIPRESCI International Critics Award at the London Film Festival.In 2010 he played Richard III at the Melbourne Theatre Company directed by Simon Philips. Alison Croggon in The Australian wrote: 'This is a deeply intelligent performance, physically and emotionally unafraid. It marks the ascension of a remarkable actor'. He won his second Helpmann Award and a Green Room Award for this performance. The following year he played Hamlet in a sellout season at the Melbourne Theatre Company (a role he would reprise in 2013 in Sydney for Belvoir St Theatre).In 2011 he played an alcoholic shut-in named Birdmann in Julia Leigh's Sleeping Beauty which played in Official Competition at the Cannes Film Festival. That same year he was cast as the lead role in Dead Europe, a film directed by Tony Krawitz and based on Christos Tsiolkas' novel of the same name. He received AACTA Award, FCCA Award and Australian Film Critics Association nominations for his work in the film. He also played one of the lead roles in The Wild Duck (directed by Simon Stone) which had successful seasons in Sydney, Melbourne and Oslo for The Ibsen Festival.Following this he played barrister Bryan Keon-Cohen in Mabo, journalist Matt Peacock in Devil's Dust and Detective Les Paris in The Mule opposite Hugo Weaving and Angus Sampson. He was The Player in STC's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead opposite Toby Schmitz and Tim Minchin.In 2015 he traveled to Paris to perform in Simon Stone's production of Thyestes, and played the title role in Belvoir's award-winning production of Ivanov. That same year he played Keith Murdoch in Deadline Gallipoli alongside Sam Worthington, Hugh Dancy and Joel Jackson. He then played the role of Oliver in The Daughter, an adaptation of Ibsen's The Wild Duck, directed by Simon Stone, co-starring Geoffrey Rush, Paul Schneider, Miranda Otto, Odessa Young and Sam Neill.