Biografia
Craig Walsh-Wrightson, born in New Zealand and partly educated in England, graduated summa cum laude. He declined a Charterhouse Scholarship to return home and later earned a double Bachelor's degree in History and English Literature from Victoria University of Wellington, while also studying Politics, French, and Economics.
During his postgraduate studies in Modern History, he was recruited by the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation as a documentary maker and subsequently headhunted by a national advertising agency as a writer and TV producer.
At 24, he co-founded January Productions, Australasia’s first multi-media creative consultancy and production company. This partnership evolved into Campaign Advertising Group, a leading advertising agency. A decade later, Craig and his partners sold the company to UK interests, transforming Campaign into Saatchi & Saatchi New Zealand, where Craig served as Executive Creative Director.
Craig has written, produced, and occasionally directed over 100 major television commercials.
As a composer, lyricist, and music producer, he has created numerous radio and TV commercial soundtracks.
He is a multi-AXIS Award winner (the New Zealand equivalent of the U.S. Clio awards) for his work as a writer, art director, producer, and film director.
As an anchorman and interviewer, he hosted the prime-time TVNZ series 'Money Go Round.'
An award-winning international voice-over artist and narrator, Craig’s credits include Cadbury’s, Coca-Cola, Lexus, L’Oréal, Vodafone, Repsol, CBS Records, EMI, Mitsubishi, McDonald’s, Suzuki, and BNZ. His work also features the NZ Book Council’s animated cinema commercial 'Going West' (Gold Lion at Cannes) and TVNZ’s six-part millennium production 'Our People. Our Century,' which won 'Best Documentary' at the NZFTA Awards.
Despite a busy career in other fields, Craig began screen acting later in life, quickly gaining recognition as a charismatic performer in series such as 'Xena Warrior Princess,' 'Outrageous Fortune,' 'Burying Brian,' 'The Pretender,' and Disney’s 'Legend of the Seeker.'
Originally cast for a brief guest role in Starz USA’s first season of 'Spartacus,' Craig’s portrayal of Solonius impressed the showrunners so much that his character appeared in eight of the 13 episodes, including a dramatic death duel with Spartacus himself. Solonius then returned for all six episodes of the prequel season 'Spartacus: Gods of the Arena,' which was sold to 150 countries before its Netflix debut.
Craig’s subsequent roles include British General Sir Charles Monro in the mini-series 'Deadline Gallipoli,' French Minister of Defence Charles Hernu in the Netflix film 'Bombshell: The Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior,' and Emperor Tiberius in season two ('Caligula') of the Netflix original series 'Roman Empire.
