Bob Morley

The farmer who didn't want to be an actor

Bob Morley was born on a farm in Kyneton in 1984. He is the youngest of four siblings and spent his early years far from any conventional artistic aspirations. His father died when he was young. That early loss often surfaces in accounts of his reserved character, but he prefers to talk about his training in engineering before deciding on drama.

He moved to Melbourne to study creative arts. Before finishing his degree, he already had an agent. In 2006 he landed the role of Drew Curtis on Home and Away. It was his direct entry into the living rooms of millions of Australians.

And it worked.

Despite his instant popularity, the actor felt uncomfortable with the teen heartthrob image the network had imposed on him. In 2008, he decided to leave the series in search of more substantial roles. He appeared in The Strip, but the show barely lasted one season on air due to low ratings.

The jump to science fiction in Vancouver

In 2014, his life changed in a Los Angeles office. He was cast as Bellamy Blake in The 100. The The CW series began as a survival drama and became a complex political dystopia that ran for seven years. Morley was the moral center of the storyline across exactly 100 episodes.

During the filming of season six in 2019, he stepped behind the camera. He directed the episode titled Ashes to Ashes. It was a technical decision aimed at gaining more control over the creative process beyond pure acting.

His romance with his castmate Eliza Taylor was kept secret until their wedding in 2019. It was a media move that caught the entertainment press off guard, since no one knew they were dating. But they chose to protect their private lives in an industry that tends to devour intimacy.

Not everything was easy on set.

In 2020, the final season of The 100 was hit by personal problems involving the actor that limited his screen time. The writers had to rewrite much of his character's final story arc to fit the filming schedule in Canada.

His mature phase in Australia

After the end of the series that made him a global star, Morley returned to his professional roots. In 2021, he joined the cast of Love Me. It is an Australian romantic drama in which he plays Peter and shares the screen with Hugo Weaving. The series returned for a second season in 2023.

That same year, he shot the thriller I’ll Be Watching in the United States. The film was shot entirely on location in Atlanta during the winter. It was a low-budget project compared with the big Warner Bros. productions, but it allowed him to explore the domestic suspense genre.

In 2023, he also starred in In Limbo for ABC. He plays Nate in a story that mixes dark comedy with grief after a friend's suicide. Critics praised his ability to carry the dramatic weight without slipping into cheap sentimentality.

Filming of the first season of In Limbo took six weeks in Queensland.

Morley charges between 50 and 80 dollars per signed autograph at fan conventions. In 2024 he kept a home split between Melbourne and Los Angeles, depending on casting needs each semester.