- Height6′ (1.83 m)
- Jonno Roberts has been acting in the US since arriving from New Zealand in 1999. He has become a popular performer on stage as well as screen, performing throughout the US and Europe.
He rapidly gained a reputation for hard-hitting performances in a number of productions that have been acknowledged as American theatre landmarks, including the hit New York production of Tracey Letts' "BUG" (he replaced Michael Shannon in the lead role); as Eilif in Janos Szasz' devastating "Mother Courage" at the American Repertory Theatre; as Edmund the Bastard to Stacy Keach's "King Lear" at the Goodman Theatre, Chicago; and in notorious Catalan director Calixto Bieito's sole American production - "Camino Real", also at the Goodman.
He was profiled as a notable artist by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Before moving to the US, he was best known in New Zealand as a comedian, and can still be occasionally seen performing at the legendary LA venue Largo, alongside longtime friend and comedy partner Rhys Darby.
Jonno received a Masters degree from the Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University, and from the Moscow Arts Theatre School.
- IMDb mini biography by: MW
- Gender / Gender identityMale
- Was once a rodeo clown and bullfighter in North Carolina and Virginia.
- Has a Masters degree from Harvard University, and the Moscow Arts Theatre in Russia.
- Nominated for Best Actor at the Sacramento International Film Festival for "The Elephant King". Film won Best Picture and Best Score.
- The story wants to be told; it's just hunting around for a pen that is on paper.
- It doesn't matter what I feel; it matters what the audience feels. However, if the angels descend and do touch you with something emotional in the moment, that can be useful for the performance. I wish the angels would descend more often with me, and I wish I wasn't quite so afraid of them.
- Acting is a team sport. No actor is better than the person they are acting with, the text they are given, and the director who has prodded them towards their performance. Any actor who doesn't acknowledge this is kidding themselves.
- I believe that the higher cause of all art is to reveal something that is beyond the factual truth of the world -- something that is a more poetic truth, a more human truth. Facts are cold; humans are messy.
- I see it all the time in my work. I teach actors I try to prompt them, try to get them to lose their fear of that rage I see in so many of them. I tell them it's okay to give in to it, that the fire they are so afraid of will not, cannot, shall not consume them.
But I'm lying. My own chest contains a bomb. I am terrified of its power.
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