Australian actor and director John Noble was born on August 20, 1948 in Port Pirie, South Australia. He started his career on theater, notably as the Artistic Director of the Stage Company of South Australia. During his ten-year tenure, which began in 1977, he directed 80 plays and was partly responsible for the cultural explosion in the state. During the time, he also performed in numerous productions from all of the state’s major arts companies. He was also responsible for producing 70 new Australian plays. He also brought his performances to other countries, appearing in productions at London’s West End and the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland.
Noble brought his acting prowess to the screen in the late 1980s, making his film debut in the mystery thriller The Dreaming in 1988. In 2002, he appeared in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (with his name misspelled in the credits); the scene he was in only appeared in the extended version, but his character became more prominent in the third film in the series, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, a year later. His other films include The Nostradamus Kid, The Monkey’s Mask, Fracture, Voodoo Lagoon, Running Sacred and One Night with the King.
Noble also had a notable television career, having started with appearances in Australian and British programs. He had recurring roles in the dramas Young Lions and All Saints, and the soap opera Home and Away. In the United States, he’s played guest roles in Stargate SG-1, Journeyman, The Unit and 24, where he played Russian envoy Anatoly Markov. His first regular television role in the United States is in the science fiction series Fringe; he played the role of Walter Bishop, a brilliant scientist whose experiments has sent him to a mental institution, and now has to explain recent unnatural phenomena with his shattered memory.
