Karl Urban (natural June 7, 1972), an actor from Wellington, New Zealand, is best known for swimming Éomer, in the second and third films of Peter Jackson's ''The Lord of the Rings film trilogy based on the books by J. R. R. Tolkien.

Urban attended St Mark's Church School in Wellington, New Zealand, where he showed an early love for public performance. He went in to Wellington College.

A select few of his earliest operate involved roles in New Zealand soap Shortland Street, which apparently interrupted his planned attendance of Victoria University of Wellington, and the guest role on the 2nd year of police force drama Shark in the Park.

Urban was seen on the internationally syndicated American television shows Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys in which he played both Cupid and Julius Caesar from 1996 to 2001. These shows were filmed around New Zealand. He recently co-starred in The Chronicles of Riddick with Vin Diesel and Judi Dench and The Bourne Supremacy with Matt Damon.

Karl Urban is swimming a lead character within Universal Pictures' Doom which commenced production in 2004 with a release date of October 21, 2005.