Kodi Smit-McPhee is an Australian actor. He is known for his roles as The Boy in The Road, Owen in Let Me In, Norman Babcock in ParaNorman, Alexander in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Nightcrawler in the 2016 film X-Men: Apocalypse, and the lead role in the film Alpha.
Smit-McPhee's first feature film role was in Romulus, My Father, which garnered him the 2007 AFI Award for Best Young Actor as well as a Best Actor nomination. His appearance in 2009's The Road saw him receive a Critics' Choice Award nomination for Best Young Actor and a 2010 Australian Film Institute (AFI) nomination for Best International Actor. The following year, he starred in Let Me In, for which he received a 2010 Critics Choice Award nomination for Best Young Actor for his performance in the film; he was also nominated for the film Matching Jack the same year. In 2012, he filmed The Congress. The film premiered at the 2013 Directors' Fortnight at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival.
Smit-McPhee then voiced the lead role of Norman in ParaNorman, a 2012 animated comedy horror film which was nominated for Best Animated Feature for the 2013 Academy Awards, and also received a 2013 BAFTA Award nomination for Best Animated Film. Later the same year, Smit-McPhee had a role in Dead Europe, which premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival. His next role came in The Wilderness of James in the title role of James. He also starred in A Birder's Guide to Everything, which premiered at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival, and played Benvolio in a film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. He co-starred in the 20th Century Fox film Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014). The project reunited him with director Matt Reeves, with whom he previously worked with on the film Let Me In.
In 2013, Smit-McPhee filmed the action science fiction film Young Ones. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2014. Soon after, he appeared in Slow West, which was released in 2015. In March 2014, he was cast in the Nine Network's seven-part drama series Gallipoli; which was broadcast in February and March 2015, the year that marks the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landing. He plays 17-year-old Thomas "Tolly" Johnson, who ages himself up so that he can enlist with his brother Bevan and ends up fighting at Gallipoli in the campaign that helped create the Anzac legend. The series was produced by Endemol Australia and was shot over a three-month period starting in March 2014. Smit-McPhee played Nightcrawler in X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), a role whose older version was previously played by Alan Cumming. Smit-McPhee will reprise the role in X-Men: Dark Phoenix. He played the central character Keda, an Ice Age adolescent who tames a wolf, in Alpha (2018).
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