Emmett Skilton


Emmett Skilton is a New Zealand actor and director.
He played the lead character, Axl Johnson, in the comedy-drama, The Almighty Johnsons, and most recently had roles in Avatar: The Way of Water and American comedy series Young Rock, portraying Dwayne Johnson's real-life college football coach, Ed Orgeron.
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Early life

Emmett was born in Wellington, New Zealand. He grew up in Titahi Bay and attended Mana College, all in his home town of Titahi Bay. Emmett performed in the New Zealand Sheilah Winn Shakespeare Festival every year that he was at Mana College, and one year directed A Midsummer Night's Dream. In 2005 he was selected to attend the New Zealand Schools Shakespeare Production.
During high school, Emmett performed with improvisation troupe, Joe Improv, at Wellington's Capital E. New Zealand director Danny Mulheron saw Emmett perform and asked him to audition for the role of Willem in Seven Periods with Mr Gormsby. The following year he toured New Zealand and Sydney with the acting company The Ugly Shakespeare Company, before attending Toi Whakaari: New Zealand Drama School, in 2007.

Career

Film and television

While studying at Toi Whakaari, Emmett starred in the feature film, based on Gaylene Preston's family during WW2. He graduated at the end of 2009 with a Bachelor of Performing Arts in Acting and began starring as Axl Johnson in The Almighty Johnsons from 2010.
Emmett played real-life figures Sam Giancana in US series The Making of the Mob: Chicago in 2016 and Victor Lownes in American Playboy: The Hugh Hefner Story in 2017. He had a role, currently undefined, in James Cameron's Avatar: The Way of Water,, New Zealand and Canadian co-production,, Amazon Prime's American Playboy: The Hugh Hefner Story,.
Emmett recently starred in NBC's new single-camera comedy series, Young Rock, based on the life of Dwayne Johnson. Emmett portrays Johnson's former position coach at the University of Miami, former LSU head coach, Ed Orgeron.

Directing

From 2015 to 2017, Emmett produced and directed the comedy web series which centres around a young heartbroken girl in Auckland, New Zealand, in her quest to find love again from her not-so-useful best friends. He also directed the award-winning comedy series,, exclusively for Instagram TV in 2019 to present.
Emmett co-directed Stan Harrington's Australian series,, released in 2019.
He is a screen tutor at leading drama school The Actors Program and directed their 2017 and 2018 graduation films, Ripple and 13 Suspects, the latter written by The Almighty Johnsons co-creator Rachel Lang.
Most recently, Emmett has directed over 100 episodes of Shortland Street for TVNZ.

Filmography

Film

A Mistake Alexander Colton

Television

Web

  • Barbarian
  • Producer/Director
  • Producer/Director
  • Axl Johnson

Theatre

Awards

  • Best Acting Ensemble –
  • Alumni Award –
  • Best Director of a series –
  • Best Director of an International Web-series –
  • Best Screenplay for an International Web-series –
  • Nomination for 'Rising Star' Award –