But not long before he got the call to audition for that career-making part, the actor \u2014 who was raised in Warnbro in Western Australia \u2014 was struggling to find his true identity within the industry, even after securing the 2004 Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actor for his role in the romantic drama Somersault.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter Somersault came out in 2004, we won all 13 categories in which it was nominated at the Australian Film Institute Awards,\u201d Worthington recalled to The Wall Street Journal<\/a>. \u201cI was 28 and had won best actor.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet the success didn\u2019t go to his head \u2014 in fact, it did the opposite, with the actor admitting that he found himself, one year later, still searching for something that he didn\u2019t believe he would be able to find while settled at home.<\/p>\n So, he sold all of his belongings, packed up, and began living in his red Toyota hatchback.<\/p>\n MORE: \u2018Sh*t\u2019: Sam, Bingle quit Aus for US with $91m<\/a><\/p>\n Pitt\u2019s secret move against Jolie after split<\/a><\/p>\n Wahlberg\u2019s secret $72m Packer move in Aus<\/a><\/p>\n Avatar actor Sam Worthington has revealed why he made the decision to move into his car in a bid to “clear his head,” just as his on-screen career was beginning to take off. Picture: 20th Century Fox<\/p>\n \u201cAbout a year later, I looked in my mirror and didn\u2019t feel fulfilled. I sold everything, including the mirror,\u201d he revealed, \u201clived in my red Toyota hatchback by choice, to clear my head.\u201d<\/p>\n The actor previously told Variety<\/a> that he had begun struggling with his growing fame, particularly when it came to being recognised out in public, something that he found difficult to handle.<\/p>\n \u201cI needed to get the heck out. I was living in Sydney, and every time I would go to the bar, people would recognise me. I was rebelling against that,\u201d he told the outlet.<\/p>\n Worthington continued to audition for roles, both in his native Australia and in the U.S., having been advised by his \u201cmentor\u201d and countryman, Russell Crowe, to split his time between the two countries. It was then that the opportunity to audition for Avatar arose, although the actor initially had no idea how much of a career-making movie it would turn out to be, because they were unwilling to share any details about the project.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the late 2000s, my agent lined up a film audition, but when I arrived, they couldn\u2019t tell me about the role, the director or the plot. I wasn\u2019t happy,\u201d he admitted.<\/p>\n It would be another year of auditions before the full scope of the project was revealed to Worthington \u2014 who praised Cameron for his unwavering support throughout that process, noting that the director \u201cbacked me all the way.\u201d<\/p>\n The first of the three movies in the Avatar franchise began filming in 2007 on a soundstage in Playa Vista, although Cameron made his cast travel to Hawaii before production began so that they could learn what it was like to survive and live in a rainforest environment.<\/p>\n \u201cWe did a sense-memory experiment in Hawaii. We trekked around the rainforest for three days, building campfires and cooking fish, trying to live tribally,\u201d he revealed in 2009 when the first movie was released.<\/p>\n Avatar would turn out to be a jaw-dropping success, smashing multiple box office records and becoming the highest-grossing film of all time, beating Titanic by close to $1.5 billion ($US1 billion), although it later lost that title to Avengers: Endgame.<\/p>\n Today, the Australian lives with his wife, Lara Worthington, and their three children in a rented “double apartment” in lower Manhattan, with the actor joking that he loves the anonymity New York City affords him. Picture: Getty Images<\/p>\n Following the premiere of the movie, Worthington\u2019s star began to rise in Hollywood \u2014 and he followed the first Avatar film with several roles in major projects, including parts in The Titan and Wrath of the Titans.<\/p>\n In 2014, he wed his wife, Australian model Lara Worthington, with whom he now shares three children: Rocket, 11, Racer, 9, and River, whose birthday they have never shared publicly.<\/p>\n The actor would return to the Avatar franchise in 2017, when production on both of its sequels began \u2014 with the second movie, Avatar: The Way of Water, released in 2022, while the final instalment, Avatar: Fire and Ash, premiered at the end of 2025.<\/p>\n Though they did not quite match the success of the original film, both movies were considered box office hits and helped to cement the actor\u2019s status as one of Hollywood\u2019s leading male stars.<\/p>\n But Worthington told The Wall Street Journal that his phenomenal rise to fame did not stop his soul searching journey, admitting: \u201cEven after Avatar and all of my other films, I\u2019m still trying to figure out who I am.\u201d<\/p>\n Today, the actor and his wife continue to live a somewhat \u201cnomadic\u201d existence that hearkens back to Worthington\u2019s time spent living in his vehicle \u2014 albeit with a much more permanent base serving as their abode: a rented \u201cdouble apartment\u201d in lower Manhattan, although they do own a country house upstate.<\/p>\n Speaking to GQ in 2024, the actor confessed that he relishes the anonymity he\u2019s able to enjoy in New York, joking that \u201cno one gives a s**t what I do\u201d in the city, while he is able to enjoy friendships with people who \u201cdon\u2019t even talk about my work.\u201d<\/p>\n However, when he needs to escape city life, Worthington heads upstate with his family to their seven-acre spread, which boasts its own lake. Parts of this story first appeared in Realtor<\/a> and was republished with permission.<\/p>\n MORE: \u2018Didn\u2019t have enough\u2019: Star\u2019s sad Aussie life<\/a><\/p>\n Shock twist: Neverland not MJ\u2019s final home<\/a><\/p>\n \u2018I\u2019m coming\u2019: Charlize\u2019s secret move to Aus<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian actor Sam Worthington has revealed why he made the decision to move into his car in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-482727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Worthington and his wife are understood to have trimmed down their property portfolio in recent years, having previously owned dwellings in Los Angeles and Hawaii, which they have since sold off.<\/p>\n