Nathan Page

Nathan Page was born in Perth, Western Australia to an Air Force family and moved around Australia frequently as a child.^[1] He started cycling in Canberra at the age of 14 and shot up through the racing ranks in New South Wales. He began competing at national level at 15, which led to a scholarship to the Australian Institute of Sport in Adelaide.^[2]

A former cyclist, Page attended the Australian Institute of Sport^[3] with Stuart O'Grady and competed in Europe with Lance Armstrong.^[4][5] He retired from professional cycling at the age of 19 due to various injuries and his inability to remain competitive in Europe without performance-enhancing drugs.^[6] He recalled "It was an era that was plagued by drugs, and it was very hard to see your way through to a long career... because I stayed clean, you could beat them some of the time, but not all of the time."^[4]

Describing his decision to take up acting after ending his cycling career, Page has said "I went into a wilderness for a while and had nothing to fall back on, then I decided to do something that was going to scare me".^[4] He began with "a little Tuesday night drama class"^[7] and graduated from the Centre for Performing Arts, Adelaide (now the Adelaide College of the Arts) in 1996.^[8]

In the first years of his acting career, Page primarily worked in theatre productions in Adelaide.^[9] In 2002 he appeared in Same, Same But Different, a major work created by Kate Champion and performed by dance theatre company Force Majeure. The work was performed at Sydney Festival, Brisbane Festival, Sydney Opera House, and the Melbourne Festival.^[10]

Page appeared in the films Strange Fits of Passion in 1999 and Sample People in 2000.^[8] In 2003, he had a recurring role in the third season of The Secret Life of Us as Charlie, Richie Blake's boyfriend.^[8] In 2009, he was lauded for his performance as Ray 'Chuck' Bennett in Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities.^[5]

In 2011, Page played Alasdair 'Mac' Macdonald, the husband of Ita Buttrose in Paper Giants: The Birth of Cleo, an ABC miniseries about Buttrose's life. After the series aired, Macdonald sued the ABC for defamation for erroneously depicting him as deserting his family. Scenes of Page's performance in Paper Giants were played in court as evidence. The ABC later issued a formal apology to Macdonald.^[11]

In 2012, Page co-starred as Detective Inspector Jack Robinson in the first season of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries opposite Essie Davis, with whom he had appeared in a stage production of Macbeth in July 1998.^[12] In 2013, he played Henry Stokes in Underbelly: Squizzy on Nine Network. In 2015, he played Koz Krilich in Hiding on the ABC.

In 2016, Page returned to the stage for the first time in ten years.^[13] He played Vinnie in The Distance with the Melbourne Theatre Company and starred as Richard Hannay in The 39 Steps with the State Theatre Company of South Australia in Adelaide.^[13][14]

Page was cast as a lead actor in the 2020 film Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears.^{[citation needed]} He appeared in the 2020 thriller film Escape from Pretoria, alongside Daniel Radcliffe, which was filmed in Adelaide in March 2019.^[15] In 2022, Page appeared in an episode of the thriller television series The Tourist, playing Constable Alex.^{[16][better source needed]}

Page also works as a voice actor. He has voiced numerous television commercials for such companies as Schweppes, BMW, Kubota Tractor Corporation, and Asics, as well as the Royal Australian Navy.^[17]

A photograph of Page, titled The Chameleon IV, 2015 by Sydney-based photographer Sam McAdam-Cooper, was a finalist for the National Photographic Portrait Prize in 2016. Finalist photographs were displayed at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra and were exhibited throughout Australia in 2016 and 2017.^[18]

As of 2012^[update] Page was living in Adelaide with his wife, New Zealand dancer and choreographer Sarah-Jayne Howard,^[19] and their two sons.^[20]