Not since Chopper has Eric Bana looked so menacing.
Less than a fortnight after Heath Ledger was honoured with a posthumous Oscar for playing Batman nemesis The Joker, Bana is generating similar buzz in Hollywood for his role as villainous alien leader Nero in the new big budget Star Trek film.
"He hasn't done anything like this since Chopper," Star Trek director, JJ Abrams, who was given the job to re-energise the film franchise, told AAP.
"I was so excited when he agreed to do it."
The Melbourne-born actor shaved his head for the role.
His face is covered in tattoos.
In Bana's breakthrough 2000 role in Chopper he concealed his ears to play infamous Australian standover man Mark Read, who had a fellow inmate cut off his ears in prison.
In Star Trek, Bana sports pointy rubber ears.
Hollywood studio Paramount Pictures' early release of photos of Bana as the evil Romulan leader Nero and a glimpse of him in a TV ad airing during last month's Superbowl had Trekkies salivating.
Abrams, one of Hollywood's most powerful players after creating TV series Lost, Alias and Fringe, producing last year's sci-fi hit Cloverfield and directing Mission: Impossible III, was not sure if Bana would accept the role.
"Eric had to be a bad guy in a space adventure," Abrams said.
"That was the job description.
"He had to shave his head, put on face tattoos, crazy ears and a huge wart."
Abrams was not a fan of Star Trek, but agreed to direct the film after reading the script, which examines the early years of Captain James T Kirk, Spock and many of the other well known characters from the TV series and other Star Trek films.
LA-born 30-year-old Chris Pine was cast as Kirk while Heroes TV series villain Zachary Quinto plays the young Spock.
Abrams said he was stunned with what Bana did with the bad guy character Nero.
"He just transformed," Abrams said.
"He did all of these great things.
"To me he became this character.
"Eric came up with this great voice and did all these things to a degree that there were a couple of people, directors, who saw the movie and afterward said 'Who was that bad guy?'
"When I told them it was Eric Bana they were like 'What?'.
"It was so funny seeing people who would know him not recognise him."
Star Trek will be released in theatres in Australia and the rest of the world in May.
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