Joel Edgerton strong contender for Oscar nomination as he graces cover of GQ Australia

JOEL Edgerton isn’t buying into any Oscars hype this time round.

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JOEL Edgerton isn’t buying into any Oscars hype this time round.

After being tipped as a possibility but missing out on a best supporting actor nomination for 2015’s Black Mass, the Aussie leading man is hoping for a different outcome at next year’s Academy Awards.

Picture: Eric Ray Davidson for GQ Australia

His new film, Loving, is being touted as a strong contender even though the awards don’t take place until February.

“You have to be careful about how much you indulge and how much you buy a ticket to your own parade,” he tells the November issue of GQ Australia magazine, in stores next Monday.

Loving was critically acclaimed at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, sparking early Oscars talk. The Jeff Nichols-directed film is the real life story of an interracial couple in the 1950s. Ruth Negga plays Edgerton’s on-screen wife in the film based on the 1967 US Supreme Court case involving Richard and Mildred Loving.

Edgerton is regarded as a chameleon of an actor. He’s starred in huge Hollywood films but is still not a household name in the US and that’s by choice.

“If you’re super good looking and charismatic and you like playing the same character every time, good luck to you — you’ll make squillions of dollars,” he said. “The interest I have in being an actor, though, is adapting your energy to play all sorts of different characters. If I’d done a shitty movie maybe I’d have a Maserati. But I’d be sitting across from you, biting my tongue all f***ing day going, ‘I f***ing hate myself for this shit.’”

Edgerton on the cover of GQ’s November issue.

Edgerton reveals candidly to GQ.

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He added: “Look, here’s the thing about me — I’m a slow burn. I’m f***ing 42 and I finally have a career. If success had come earlier, I definitely would have pissed it up the wall.”

Edgerton is clearly not afraid to speak his mind. And he doesn’t shy away from politics.

“This is maybe going to come back to haunt me,” he said of controversial US Presidential candidate Donald Trump.

“But it’s like a drunk person is meanderingly driving through the streets and you expect him to be pulled up within five minutes, and yet three hours later, he’s still driving around and no one’s pulled him over. It’s like a weird kind of collision of shit that keeps on going.”

As for his personal life, notoriously private Edgerton opened up about his split from ex fiance Alexis Blake, saying he chose his career over love.

“Right at that time, I made a decision that I was just going to work my arse off. To be honest, I haven’t changed that thought. I’m seriously married to work.”

Becoming a father is also on his mind.

“Yeah, I think about it. I just turned 42. I have time. Plenty of time.”