AllMovie

Canadian-born Mark Rendall committed to an acting career at the age of 11, and soon watched his dreams materialize when he auditioned for the producers at a tryout for the Cameron Mackintosh London touring company's stage production of Lionel Bart's Oliver! Despite a complete lack of formal experience and training in the areas of drama and vocal performance, Rendall scored a role as one of Fagin's child thieves and an assignment as understudy to the lead. From there, Rendall secured an agent and signed for a role as Bastian Balthazar Bux in the Canadian television fantasy series Tales from the Neverending Story (adapted from Michael Ende's beloved children's novel and its spin-off movie franchise) -- and made a seemingly effortless segue into features including the productions Touching Wild Horses (2002), Scream Team (2002), and, memorably, the lead role of an obnoxious, spoiled-rotten child actor in Don McKellar's show-business satire Childstar (2004). By 2007, Rendall began to place a greater emphasis on A-list feature roles, and in fact scored his breakthrough that year, with parts in three big-screen productions: the vampire horror opus 30 Days of Night, the high-school satire Charlie Bartlett, and the period adventure drama-cum-romance Silk.