Eric Bana has returned to our TV screens after a six-year absence, and he’s officially a silver fox.

The 56-year-old Time Traveler’s Wife star hasn’t starred in a series since 2019’s true crime anthology series Dirty John, in which he played titular sociopath John Meehan alongside Connie Britton.

Now, he’s reappearing in Netflix’s new limited series Untamed, in which he portrays Kyle Turner – a National Parks Service agent who investigates a brutal death in the Yosemite National Park wilderness.

By the same creators as The Revenant, the character-driven six-episode mystery is also co-produced by Eric, who stars alongside Jurassic Park’s Sam Neill, La La Land’s Rosemarie DeWitt, Lily Santiago, and Wilson Bethel.

While Eric hasn’t starred in any TV shows for a minute, he’s still been busy appearing in various films, including A Sacrifice, Blueback in 2022, and 2020’s award-winning adaptation of Jan Harper’s book The Dry as well as the follow-up.

He’s also voiced a number of animations including Memoir of a Snail alongside Succession’s Sarah Snook in 2024, and he appeared as Adam Durwood in podcast series The Orchard.

While Eric’s most notable roles since he appeared on the acting scene in the 00s include playing Hoot in Black Hawk Down, Hector in Troy, and as Bruce Banner in Hulk, he started off life in the spotlight as a stand-up and sketch comedian.

The Troy star has previously talked about how he’s approached his career in a balanced way since his breakout performance in 2000’s Chopper.

In 2005, he was one of a small group of actors alongside his Munich co-star Daniel Craig to be approached to play James Bond, but he never wanted the role.

‘I wouldn’t have wanted to be James Bond,’ he told The Independent in 2022, adding: ‘It would have been too much fame for my head.’

Unlike Craig – who played 007 from 2006 to 2021 – Eric said a lack of such huge fame means he’s ‘largely able to do whatever the hell I want, whenever I want,” he said, adding that not having the freedom to do so ‘would have been a great loss’.

When asked by TNT Magazine in 2014 whether he thinks it had harmed his career not moving to Los Angeles- as many Australian actors do – he replied: ‘No. And even if it has, it wouldn’t make any difference to me.

‘I love my life with my wife and kids in Melbourne and that’s my home. I don’t mind flying to Los Angeles for a few days or weeks at a time to talk to people in Hollywood when I need to.

‘I still have to travel to the US or other countries when I’m shooting movies, so it doesn’t make any difference anyway. These days you can just go online and have meetings using your computer.’

Eric married publicist Rebecca Gleeson in 1997 two years after they are thought to have first crossed paths and they are still together almost 30 years on.

They share two children – Klaus, 25, and Sophia, 23.

Untamed lands on Netflix on July 17.

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