GEORGE TOWN, Feb 15 — He is the lead in 300: Rise Of An Empire where plays Greek general Themistokles who battles the Persians.

But Sullivan Stapleton was not always a prominent or sought-after actor and worked in the building industry and on sets as a grip in between acting jobs.

He started acting  in TV commercials from the young age of 11 but the 38-year-old Australian actor got his big break when he played Craig Cody in Animal Kingdom in 2010.

Today he splits his time between filming in Melbourne, Australia and Los Angeles, rarely staying in one place for long.

A strong supporter of the short film festival Tropfest, he was more than happy to accept when  he was invited to be a “live” judge for the second Tropfest Southeast Asia on February 1.

Here, Stapleton talks about his acting career, his views on Tropfest and his love for Asia.

In his own words:

A friend of mine helps out at Tropfest and she suggested me as a judge and thank God they said yes. I originally thought that they were asking me to be on the panel of judges in Tropfest Sydney so I thought it’s fine, I’ll do that. Then they said, “No, you’ll go to Tropfest SEA... you are going to Malaysia!” I love Asia and also it’s an honour to be asked to be part of a judging panel.

For the last four and a half years, I’ve been out of the country filming… I’ve missed Tropfest a lot. But in the years that I’ve seen it (Tropfest), it’s an incredible thing. To me it’s a great opening for up and coming film-makers.

I’ve been in the industry since the age of 11, doing commercials and bit parts and till now, I kept at it. Kept working hard at it. It’s a very hard industry.

I went back to building and gripping and that took the pressure off some of the acting jobs. This is because I wasn’t just sitting there waiting, just for the love of art. It’s because you need to pay rent, you need to eat and so through the ability of that (earning my keep), when I lost a job, if a director didn’t pick me, it didn’t bother me. That’s his decision so I went back to building and gripping.That takes the pressure off chasing the dream.

Australia is my home but I will focus on Los Angeles at the moment because that’s where I’ve been out of the market for a while, partly because of my injury and doing my show so I guess I want to reintroduce myself and get back into that business there.

I’m open to most films but when a film is based on a true story or actual events, that really opens up my heart and head to that story. I think, to watch a story through someone’s eyes that you know happened, I think that’s very powerful. Film-making is storytelling and when you can actually sit there and know that this actually happened, I do love that.

Now, I’m unemployed. It’s kind of nice now to be unemployed. I don’t know how long it’ll be. But I have to be in Los Angeles regarding future projects after this. God knows what happens then.

I have been to Malaysia before, about 10 years ago... went to Kuala Lumpur and Kuala Kangsar.

What I love about Malaysia and all of Asia is the food and also the people. I don’t know the names of what we ate, but it was delicious. It was a great start to my trip here.

I love Penang. I just came from Bangkok and I love the culture, the people and the food. That’s what’s exotic. It’s not the clothes and the shopping. Food. Now, this city, the architecture and the history of it… beautiful.