For years, Noah Taylor was one of the best-kept secrets of the Australian film industry. But suddenly, he's everywhere.

In terms of visibility beyond these shores, you could say he's gone from a Nowhere Man to the Noahwhere Man, seemingly overnight. In fact, it almost seems as if the only film he hasn't been in lately is ... you guessed it, Noah.

These days the 44-year-old Taylor lives in Brighton, England, the same neck of the woods as the man he was long tipped to play, Nick Cave. But for many, he will forever be Danny Embling, the lovestruck lad from rural NSW at the heart of John Duigans classic coming-of-age film The Year My Voice Broke (1987) and its sequel (of sorts – it was actually written first) Flirting (1991).

While Danny and the object of his frustrated affection, Freya Olson (Loene Carmen), never quite got it together, to the delight of many, Kriv Stenders' Red Dog (2011) allowed us a fantasy glimpse of what might have been, with the actors playing the publican Jack Collins and his wife Maureen in the outback town of Dampier.

There have been many other roles along the way, of course, but the emergence of Taylor as an international character actor is a relatively recent phenomenon, perhaps owing something to the fact he's finally grown into that craggy face of his. And best of all, he's mostly done it without having to pretend he's anything other than a bloke from Down Under.

Game of Thrones (SPOILER ALERT)
As with much else in the world, you could point the finger at Game of Thrones for this strange turn of events. In seasons three and four, Taylor played the evil Locke, a swordsman for House Bolton whose most notable contributions included chopping off Jamie Lannister's right hand and throwing Brienne into a bearpit.

Locke played a crucial role in swaying us towards the view that Jamie might not be the irredeemably evil bastard he had for so long appeared. Of course that view went out the window (rather like poor Bran Stark in season one) when Jamie raped his sister this season, but whatever.

Locke in fact briefly gave the impression he had turned a leaf of his own, as he rocked up in season four as a newly enlisted member of the Night's Watch. But it was pretty obvious he had less noble intentions in mind – namely killing Bran. In the guy's defence, at least he would have been keeping his promise to kill the remaining Stark boys.

The Double
This is the second film Taylor has made with English director, and former star of The IT Crowd, Richard Ayoade. In the first, Submarine, Taylor was the depressive father of a depressive Welsh teenager. In The Double, adapted from Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novella, he plays Harris, a colleague of the hapless Simon James (Jesse Eisenberg), a man whose life is slowly being stolen by his doppelganger. It's a smallish role, but you can catch a glimpse of Taylor in this trailer around the 44-second mark.

Edge of Tomorrow
This sci-fi epic has Tom Cruise as a futuristic soldier-cum-weapon condemned to an unbreakable cycle – memorably tagged Live, Die Repeat in the ads – as he does battle with invading aliens. And at 1:40 in the new extended trailer just released, we get to see that Noah Taylor is there to help him and a buff Emily Blunt understand what it's all about. Even if his explanation runs to just two words: "Every day". At least they're delivered in an Australian accent, just like the lines of fellow Antipodean actor Kick Gurry.

Predestination
Just announced as the opening-night film of the Melbourne International Film Festival, the third feature from Brisbane's Spierig brothers (Undead, Daybreak) stars Ethan Hawke as a time-travelling agent and Taylor as his boss. It's based on a 1959 short story by legendary sci-fi author Robert Heinlein and promises to be a mind-bender in the mould of The Matrix – albeit on a much lower budget. We can't wait.

The Menkoff Method
There's a certain symmetry about Taylor playing the title role (a management consultant – with a Russian accent, no less) in this forthcoming Australian film. It's directed by David Parker, who wrote Malcolm, which starred Ben Mendelsohn, who was in The Year My Voice Broke as the nemesis and eventual buddy of Taylor’s Danny Embling.

Like Taylor, Mendelsohn is enjoying something of a purple patch overseas – largely on the back of his role in David Michod's 2010 crime drama Animal Kingdom. It's terrific to see two of Australia's best "young" actors of the 1980s finally getting the attention they deserve – even if it has taken way longer than it should have.