Hugh Keays-Byrne

Acting

Hugh Keays-Byrne

Born — Died

1947-05-18 — 2020-12-02

Place of birth

Kashmir, India

Known for

Acting

Credits

40 titles

Hugh Keays-Byrne (May 18, 1947 – December 2, 2020) was a British-Australian actor and film director. A former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, he was best known for playing the main antagonist in two films from the Mad Max franchise: Toecutter in Mad Max (1979), and Immortan Joe in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). He also played Toad in the 1974 biker film Stone, and Grunchlk on the science fiction series Farscape. Keays-Byrne was born in Srinagar, in the state of Jammu and Kashmir (part of the British Raj then, India now) to British parents; his family returned to Britain when India was partitioned. He began his career as a stage actor. Keays-Byrne made his first television appearance i…

Known for

Film credits

2010s · 4 titles

1980s · 15 titles

The Blood of Heroes poster
5.8

Set in a futuristic world where the only sport that has survived in a wasted society is the brutal game known as jugging. Sallow, the leader of a rag-tag team, has played in the main Leagues before, but was cast out because of indiscretions with a lady. Now joined by a talented newcomer, Kidda, an ambitious young peasant girl, he and his team find they have one last chance for glory.

The Blood of Heroes

1989

The Chain Reaction poster
5.5

Contaminated by a nuclear-plant spill, an Australian worker hides with a woman and tries to warn the public.

The Chain Reaction

1980

Where the Green Ants Dream poster
6.9

The Australian Aborigines (in this film anyway) believe that this is the place where the green ants go to dream, and that if their dreams are disturbed, it will bring down disaster on us all. The Aborigines' belief is not shared by a giant mining company, which wants to tear open the soil and search for uranium.

Where the Green Ants Dream

1984

Burke & Wills poster
5.1

A story based on true events about two explorers on a doomed journey trying to cross Australia on foot in the 19 century.

Burke & Wills

1985

Les Patterson Saves the World poster
4.8

Fat middle aged 24/7 drunkard Les Patterson represents Australia at the UN where his fart literally incinerates an Arab ambassador. Patterson is reassigned to the Middle East so he can be tortured to death by the country he insulted. Patterson's arrival is the prefect distract of a coup and he is spared. At a bar Patterson meets a bio weapons scientist who's developed a horrific disease for the KGB whom plan to distribute it to the Pentagon via toilet seats. Patterson of course is far too drunk to understand anything happening and teams up with Dane Edna to save the world.

Les Patterson Saves the World

1987

Ginger Meggs poster
6.0

The escapades of Ginger Meggs, local larrikin. He's trying to win the heart of Minnie Peters, but the pressures of school, his rival Eddie Coogan and bully Tiger Kelly make life tough for him. Besides, there's fishing to be done.

Ginger Meggs

1982

Going Down poster
4.4

Middle-class Karli, alcoholic Jane, unemployed Jackie, and square Ellen are four friends living together and barely scraping by in suburban Sydney. But when Karli’s father offers her a little money and a one-way ticket to New York, she finally sees a way out of her dead-end life—that is, until the money goes missing, kickstarting a final night out on the town that none of them will ever forget.

Going Down

1983

Lorca and the Outlaws poster
3.8

Jowitt, a mercenary without recluse institutes a totalitarian regime in a small mining city of an arid planet, Ordessa, helped in that by androids incapable of any emotion. The young Lorca and his android professor, Kid, are both in this tended situation. To find the liberty, they must at any costs seize a spaceship, the "Red Star", but they quickly have to face an android killer...

Lorca and the Outlaws

1984

Treasure Island poster
7.0

Young Jim Hawkins is caught up with the pirate Long John Silver in search of the buried treasure of the buccaneer Captain Flint, in this adaptation of the classic novel by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Treasure Island

1987

Badlands 2005 poster
6.0

In 1995, a severe drought forced Americans to flee the West for the cities. Water became more precious than gold. Now in 2005, settlers are coming back, meeting new challenges, and age-old adversaries. A U.S. Marshal and his cyborg partner patrol the American West. A hard-as-nails female boss heads two U.S. Marshals (one human, one bionic) in Badlands 2005, a concept where the near future sees water as a more precious commodity than gold. The West of America has been deserted after droughts a decade earlier, and now a re-population program is underway.

Badlands 2005

1988

For Love Alone poster
3.7

Teresa is a spirited young girl chafing under the oppressive attitudes of 1930s society, and her father in particular. She fancies her poverty-stricken Latin tutor Johnathan Crow, without realising he merely considers her a pleasant diversion and nothing more, and eventually follows him from Sydney to London. En route she meets the gentle banker James Quick. Whilst navigating her relationships in London, including with a political poet bound for the Spanish Civil War, she experiences a transformation in her understanding of love. Based upon Christina Stead's best-selling Australian novel.

For Love Alone

1986

Dadah Is Death poster
5.0

On 9th of November 1983 two Australians, Kevin Barlow and Geoff Chambers were arrested at Penang Airport in Malaysia carrying 179 grams of Heroin. A crime which in Malaysia carries a mandatory sentence of death... Dadah Is Death (A Long Way From Home) is the true story of Barbara Barlow's desperate attempt to save her son from the Hangmans rope - a courageous effort that involved impassioned pleas to President Reagan, The British Prime Minister, and even the Pope. By July 1986 this international struggle had seemed to reach a hopeless conclusion and all that was left was a mother's love for her son.

Dadah Is Death

1988

Strikebound poster
6.1

Via the New York Times: "...reconstructs the true story of a coal miners' strike in the small town of Korumburra in the mid-30's... based on the real-life story of two remarkable characters, Wattie Doig, a miner who became a militant Communist activist, and his wife, Agnes, who progressed from staunch Presbyterianism to membership in the Salvation Army and, finally, to labor organization."

Strikebound

1984

Dangerfreaks poster
6.5

Grant Page & friends demonstrate stunts all over the world.

Dangerfreaks

1987

Kangaroo poster
7.3

A mild-mannered English conscientious objector moves to what he feels will be the relative calm of Australia after World War I, but gets caught in the middle of violent battles between the rising trade unions and fascist groups.

Kangaroo

1986

1970s · 10 titles

Mad Max poster
6.7

In the ravaged near-future, a savage motorcycle gang rules the road. Terrorizing innocent civilians while tearing up the streets, the ruthless gang laughs in the face of a police force hell-bent on stopping them.

Mad Max

1979

The Man from Hong Kong poster
6.6

Australian authorities arrest a man believed to be connected to the Sydney criminal underworld and send for Inspector Fang Sing Leng from Hong Kong to question him. After the alleged criminal is assassinated, Inspector Leng and the Sydney police try to hunt down those responsible and hope to solve their case along the way.

The Man from Hong Kong

1975

Mad Dog Morgan poster
5.9

The true story of Irish outlaw Daniel Morgan, who is wanted, dead or alive, in Australia during the 1850s.

Mad Dog Morgan

1976

Stone poster
6.0

After one of its members witnesses a political assassination, an outlaw motorbike gang becomes the target of a string of murders, prompting a cop to join their ranks to determine who is responsible.

Stone

1974

Barnaby and Me poster
6.2

Barnaby and Me is a 1978 Australian TV movie about a girl and her talking koala who are pursued by criminals.

Barnaby and Me

1977

Snapshot poster
5.5

A young hairdresser enters into the modeling world while fearing retaliation from her puritanical mother and stalker ex-boyfriend.

Snapshot

1979

The Death Train poster
5.4

An insurance investigator comes to a small town to investigate the death of a man insured by his company. The local residents believe his death was caused by his being run over by a ghost train. However, the investigator is sure there is a more rational explanation...

The Death Train

1978

Blue Fin poster
6.4

Based on the children's novel by celebrated South Australian author 'Colin Thiele' , this is an emotional father and son story about tuna fishing of Southern Blue Fin tuna in South Australia's Port Lincoln fishing district. Accident prone son Snook is forever making mistakes much to the chagrin of his father Pascoe. But when tragedy strikes the fishing boat during a deep sea fishing trek in the Southern Ocean, the boy is called on to become a man in a rites of sea passage to reconcile is past mishaps and save both his father and the ship from certain disaster.

Blue Fin

1978

The Trespassers poster
9.0

In 1970, political journalist Richard lives with Penny but is having an affair with actress Dee. The two woman meet and become friends.

The Trespassers

1976

No artwork available
9.0

An Australian-set romance starring Jacki Weaver.

Polly My Love

1975

Series credits

Behind the camera