Rebecca Hall, Jason Bateman and Joel Edgerton are shown in a scene from “The Gift.” (Photo credit: Universal Studios)

By Cary Darling
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

DALLAS — A recent trip to Texas was something of a homecoming for Australian actor/director/writer Joel Edgerton. While a teenager, he had been part of a performing-arts exchange program with Lubbock High School.

“It was a theater show with a bunch of kids from around Australia,” he recalls. “We toured around San Antonio, Austin and did plays. I lived in Canyon for a while. I had the time of my life. … I’d love to go back there and visit.”

If he did go back now, he’d be a bit more well-known these days. While far from a household name, Edgerton, 41, has become a regular on American screens. From playing Tom Buchanan in “The Great Gatsby” to “Ramses in Exodus: Gods and Kings,” a struggling MMA fighter opposite Tom Hardy in “Warrior” to a squadron team leader in “Zero Dark Thirty,” he has become one of those actors whose name you may not know but whose face is becoming increasingly recognizable.

In his latest film, a sly, low-budget thriller called “The Gift,” he not only stars opposite Jason Bateman but also writes and directs. It’s his first stint as a feature director, even though he and his brother, Nash, have been the heart of one of Australia’s most creative film collectives, Blue-Tongue Films, the company that produced the Oscar-nominated 2010 Australian film “Animal Kingdom” (in which Joel also co-starred).

“I’m a real control freak,” he says. “I always saw [directing] as something I wanted to do in the future. I was waiting to find the right story that was also manageable to dip my toe into the water. This was that thing. I thought if I did a good job of it, I enjoy it, then I’ll keep doing it. That’s the plan, every four years or so to make a film.”

THE BATEMAN SWITCH-UP

“The Gift,” about a successful, happily married executive (Bateman) who suddenly a finds a bullied high-school classmate he hasn’t seen in years (Edgerton) infiltrating his life, falls in line with the Hitchcock flavor of much of the Blue-Tongue catalog. Such films as “The Square,” “Wish You Were Here” and, of course, “Animal Kingdom” possess a palpable, live-wire tension that forsakes special effects for human-scale intensity and shock.

“There’s definitely a kind of darkness that runs through our films,” Edgerton acknowledges. “I think we were all influenced by similar movies growing up.”

Because of that dark edge to “The Gift,” some might be surprised to see Bateman — known largely as a comedic actor — involved. But that’s exactly what Edgerton wanted.

“I had two templates for his character: There was the jock and there was the guy who lived by his wits [in high school]. To me, the latter version of that character was more interesting,” says Edgerton.

“Jason was one of the first people I talked to about the film. … He has a history as a comic actor, and sometimes they have the most exciting dramatic turns. … Plus, he’s just that guy we like and trust. Watching him take the turn he takes is far more interesting.”

COMING TO AMERICA

Joel and Nash, who started as a stuntman, began making their own films to showcase their abilities. Joel was having some success as a TV actor — he was a main character in the hit early-2000s Aussie ensemble series “The Secret Life of Us” (akin to a more hip “Melrose Place”) — but wanted more than that. Television was just a steppingstone.

“I was working in theater and I wanted to do this play and I lost the job to a guy who’d been on a [successful TV] show called ‘Neighbours,’” Edgerton recalls. “He simply got the job because he was famous. I thought, ‘I’ve got to get me some of this fame stuff.’ I did [ ‘The Secret Life of Us’] and, after about a year and a half, I thought, ‘I really want to work in film.’ I first did that in Australia [with my brother] and then I cut that lifeline off to come over to the States.”

He’s now part of a wave of Australian actors working regularly in American film and TV. But, unlike many of the early-generation Aussies who came over in the ’80s — Bryan Brown, Paul Hogan, American-born Mel Gibson — this new generation doesn’t wear its Australian heritage like a badge.

In fact, many viewers probably don’t even know that Jai Courtney (“Terminator Genisys,” “Divergent”), Rebel Wilson (“Bridesmaids,” “Pitch Perfect”), Jason Clarke (“White House Down,” “Terminator Genisys”), Margot Robbie (“The Wolf of Wall Street”), Ryan Kwanten (“True Blood”), Brenton Thwaites (“The Giver,” “Maleficent”) and Kodi Smit-McPhee (“Dawn of the Planet of the Apes,” the upcoming “X-Men: Apocalypse”) are actually as Aussie as a jar of Vegemite.

“There’s a whole lot of untapped wealth in Australia,” Edgerton says. “They tend to head over to America a little sooner than they used to. Why hang around a place that’s not making enough movies?

“You get these actors who are fresh off the plane and into a job and a TV show. … I was somewhere in between [the old and new generations]. I feel like a real tradesman who has earned his trade. Thankfully, things moved at a nice pace for me.”