Ben O'Toole
Ben O'Toole is an actor, born 1991.
Three years in the middle of the 2010s put Ben O'Toole into three large American ensembles. The Australian actor, born in Brisbane, played Corporal Jessop in Hacksaw Ridge in 2016, Flynn in Detroit in 2017 and Scott Black in 12 Strong in 2018, in uniform for two of them and surrounded by bigger names in all three. Before that he was Henry Connor in The Water Diviner, and at home he was building an Australian television record that runs from Love Child through to recurring work on series like Amazing Grace.
The lead role that shows what he can actually do is Rex in the 2020 horror comedy Bloody Hell, a film that asks one actor to hold the screen almost alone and stay funny in extremely unpromising circumstances. It is demanding, unglamorous physical work and he is the reason the film has any following at all. Since then he has played Teddy Callis in the Australian series Boy Swallows Universe and Angus in the 2025 dark comedy thriller Penny Lane Is Dead.
He also works on stage, and one detail there is worth more than any of the film credits: he played Happy Loman in Death of a Salesman in 2013 and again in 2024, eleven years apart, at two quite different ages.
Movies (7)
TV (3)
Where to start with Ben O'Toole
One film here matters more than the rest, and it is Bloody Hell, the reason to bother at all. It is a nasty, funny, low-budget horror comedy built almost entirely on his performance, and it gives him more room than every studio film on this list combined.
For the bigger productions, Hacksaw Ridge is the best made and the most brutal, though he is one soldier among many. Detroit uses him in a tighter, more uncomfortable ensemble, and 12 Strong is the most conventional of the three.
Boy Swallows Universe is where to go for recent television: the adaptation is warm and strange, and his Teddy is the most unsettling thing in it. The Water Diviner is the early Australian credit, and Nekrotronic is the deranged one, worth it only if you like your genre films very silly.