Daniel Gillies

After coming of age in New Zealand and working very briefly in the Australian and Canadian film industries, Kiwi actor-turned-Hollywood hunk Daniel Gillies reportedly moved to Los Angeles with only 100 dollars in his pocket and began landing coveted A-list roles in seemingly no time at all; these included John Jameson -- Mary Jane's (Kirsten Dunst) love interest and Peter Parker's (Tobey Maguire) romantic rival -- in Spider-Man 2 (2004); and British vagabond Johnny Wickham in Gurinder Chadha's musical romance adaptation of Jane Austen, Bride & Prejudice (2004). Gillies also played Ethan Biggs in Into the West (2005), Steven Spielberg's miniseries about Manifest Destiny. In a much-publicized event, Gillies married Into the West co-star Rachael Leigh Cook that same year. In 2007, Gillies tackled dual roles within the horror genre. In Norio Tsuruta's Masters of Horror: Dream Cruise, Gillies played Jack, an American attorney stationed in Tokyo who embarks on a quick trip to a watery grave. In Roland Joffé's slasher movie Captivity, Gillies played a young man who blacks out and awakens alongside his girlfriend (Elisha Cuthbert), trapped in the basement of a torture-happy psychopath.

~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide