Leading Man- The Hunter

Sam Worthington plays an FBI agent on the trail of a terrorist in the much-anticipated series Manhunt: Unabomber

- A.D. Park

Sam Worthington isn’t interested in getting to know the real-life people on which his characters are based—at least not before he creates his own vision of them. The British-born Australian actor learned the hard way not to get too close to source material. “I did a movie once where the guy was a real-life guy and he would hang out in my hotel lobby and at the end of my day, he’d be there and he’d say, ‘How’d it go? Did you portray me correctly?’ ” By correctly, Worthington surmised, the man meant flatteringly. But Worthington’s loyalty is always to the character, whether the inspiration for that character likes it or not.

That’s a principle he took to this month’s Manhunt: Unabomber, a Discovery Channel series in which he plays FBI profiler Jim Fitzgerald, the real-life agent who helped solve the Unabomber case in 1996. When Worthington finally did meet Fitzgerald, who served as a consulting producer on the series, he was straightforward: “I said, ‘I’m going to portray the good side and the bad side, so be prepared.’ But I think he’s happy the story is being told.”