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Posted Sunday, Dec. 8, 2002; 2.02 p.m. GMT
When Ang Lee announced his choice to play Dr. Bruce Banner, the lead in next summer's superproduction The Hulk, most of Hollywood went "Huh?" And Australia went "Yeah!" Eric Bana is hardly known in the West — he had a bit part in Black Hawk Down — but Down Under he's a veritable Renaissance Mate. The son of Croatian and German immigrants, Bana, 34, is a familiar TV face, in his own sketch comedy series and on the drama series Something in the Air.
But it was his turn as real-life killer Mark Read in Andrew Dominik's 2000 flick Chopper that caught Lee's eye. In the mid-'90s Bana was touted as the Next Big Thing; but Russell Crowe, Hugh Jackman and nearly every other Aussie under 40 got to Hollywood first. Now that he's copped the starring role in a comic-book epic — and has been tapped to play Hector opposite Brad Pitt's Achilles in the Wolfgang Petersen epic Troy — Bana can trade in his decade of hard work for a new title: Overnight Star.
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