His career overseas may be going gangbusters, but Joel Edgerton wasn't always so lucky.

The 41-year-old, who stars opposite Johnny Depp in true-crime gangster drama Black Mass, was once unable to land a role on soaps Home and Away and Neighbours because he wasn't "pretty" enough.

"I just wasn't that pretty, to be honest. They didn't want me on a surfboard. And back then I was a little bit judgmental about the soapy stuff," Edgerton told the UK's Telegraph.

"I was working happily in the theatre, but I was losing the occasional really cool job to actors who'd been in those shows, because they sold tickets and I didn't. I remember thinking, 'F***, I've got to go out and get myself a profile'.

"So I cut that lifeline off, and then Secret Life of Us as well, and went off to do [Gregor Jordan's] Ned Kelly."

It didn't matter in the end because Edgerton soon got a call from Star Wars creator George Lucas asking him to star in Attack of the Clones, making him one of the rare Australian actors who found overseas success without starting in a homegrown soap.

"Star Wars was the canoe that took me across the river, really. There was this 18-month period after I shot it, when no one knew that I was only in the movie for five minutes."

"I wasn't being deceptive, but it meant that people were interested enough to go, oh, you're in Star Wars, show us your wares."

Since then, Edgerton has gone on to star in Zero Dark Thirty, The Great Gatsby, Exodus: Gods and Kings, and now Black Mass opposite Depp and Benedict Cumberbatch.

He also wrote, directed and starred in this year's psychological thriller The Gift, in which he plays a stalker opposite Arrested Development's Jason Bateman.

In Black Mass, Edgerton stars as corrupt FBI agent John Connelly, who is on the payroll of childhood friend and notorious Boston underworld figure, Whitey Bulger (Johnny Depp).

"There's an obvious reason why it's Johnny's movie, because of the enigmatic, charismatic, dangerous boogeyman figure that Whitey Bulger is... But John Connelly is the guy whose journey is more relatable for an audience."

So what does Edgerton think of working with high profile actors such as Benedict Cumberbatch, who he now counts as a friend?

"He needs to f***ing slow down!" he joked. "And he became a dad this same year too, and got married, and he's played Richard III. I think he's an overachiever."