By Michael Martinez
February 5, 2010

Craig Horner stands in no one's shadow. With 10 years' experience, the 26-year-old actor (who just celebrated that birthday on January 24) now leads a talented cast in bringing Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth fantasy novels to life. In fact, there are so many famous names associated with the internationally syndicated Legend of the Seeker fantasy adventure series that it almost seems like the show was destined for success. Sam Raimi ("Spider-man", "Darkman") and Rob Tapert ("Hercules: The Legendary Journeys", "Xena: Warrior Princess") are the executive producers. Bruce Spence ("The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King", "Australia", "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith", "The Matrix Revolutions", "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome") is one of Craig's co-stars.

When we spoke on the phone Craig was still working on the second season, with five more episodes to shoot. How does it feel compared to this point in your schedule last year? I asked. "Pretty grueling," Craig confessed. "When it's all done I can rest and recoup and I can really enjoy that. I guess last year I knew the day I wrapped I would go to the United States."

Not for rest and relaxation. Apparently Craig was sent on a whirlwind press tour to help promote the show. This year he is hoping to appear at a major convention in the United States. He's pretty excited about that as it came up a couple of times. If it happens this will be Craig's first American entertainment event.

With nine months of intensive shooting for Legend of the Seeker Craig doesn't get much time to do other projects. Still, considering that he is in New Zealand, I could not help but ask: Any chance you might have a role in 'The Hobbit'?

"I'm going to look into that," Craig admitted.

Probably half the actors on the planet intend to look into it but I think he'd make a pretty good Bard the Bowman. That's just my opinion, for what it's worth. Although working full-time on a successful show may limit Craig's chances of winning a role in the Guillermo del Toro movies, he does currently reside in New Zealand. I'm sure he could work something out with the scheduling. And he probably has some good referrals from Bruce Spence (who played the Mouth of Sauron in "The Lord of the Rings") and John Rhys-Davies (Gimli in LoTR).

"John Rhys-Davies guest-starred in an episode just recently," Craig revealed to me. "He's a really great person."

To hear Craig speak about the actors he has worked with through the years, one gets the impression he is an enthusiastic, warm "team player" as we say in the corporate world. He always has a kind word for his fellow cast members. In fact, I'll admit to being a bit surprised to learn Craig had worked with Geoffrey Rush (Captain Barbossa to us "Pirates of the Caribbean" fans) in "Swimming Upstream". I already knew from having watched Legend of the Seeker that Craig had shared screen time with Jay Laga'aia, who played Richard Cypher's friend Chase in the first few episodes.

Jay was one of the stars of Water Rats, an Australian television show that ran for five years. I knew his work mostly from Xena: Warrior Princess and "Star Wars" but Jay has a very long and impressive resume. I couldn't resist asking what it's like to work with Jay. "He's a big family man," Craig told me. With seven children, Jay "just does everything. He has his finger in all the pies. He is playing Mufasa in 'The Lion King' (stage play). Very typical family man." I don't do justice to how much Craig respects his peers, but he speaks very quickly and can tear through facts and anecdotes about people faster than a fan juiced on caffeine and three sleepless nights.

Despite working in Australian television for many years Craig had never met Jay Laga'aia before shooting on Legend of the Seeker began. Being curious about Craig's early work I looked him up on the Web to see what I could find. His first show was called Cybergirl, which lasted 1 season. Craig won the part of 14-year-old Jackson Campbell, the show's second lead after star Ania Stepien, at the age of 17.

Comparing his work on Cybergirl to Legend of the Seeker, Craig mused, "It's almost like it's come full circle again, now it's nearly ten years later since I started."

"It was the first audition I'd ever gone for," he recalled. "Then like a week later I had a lead role in a show that ran for eight months." He realized his enthusiasm for acting very quickly. "It was cool! I loved it!" he all but gushed. "I didn't want to do anything else. The first week, yeah, the first day -- I was like: 'I could do this for a living.'" It's rare to figure out what you really want to do at seventeen, but Craig has never looked back.

"You've got to learn from every job that you can," he continued. We talked a little bit more about his career track, moving back to Legend of the Seeker. Did you feel you were ready for the lead role, I asked him. "Being in the industry for 10 years ... I knew I was ready for it. And then, yeah, it happened."

And it happened in a controversial way, if I may say so. Although I didn't want to draw Craig into the Hercules and Xena discussion, there are so many connections to the previous shows that it's hard for a hard core nutball like me to overlook the obvious. New Zealand's film and television industry is extremely talented and professional but rather small. When "The Lord of the Rings" was gearing up for production I asked Stephen Sears (Co-Executive Producer on Xena) if the movies were having an impact on his show. "About half our crews have already signed on," Steve admitted to me. "The other half will be gone come hiatus."

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