To act with a tennis ball and imagine it's a tentacle, or if you're in some kind of wilderness film and you go, 'Okay, we can't have a grizzly bear here, but imagine when you step over the rock there there's a grizzly bear.' I don't know. They're tough moments.

Edgerton attended the Nepean Drama School at the University of Western Sydney before moving on to various stage productions most notably at Sydney Theatre Company – Blackrock Third World Blues and Love for Love – and Bell Shakespeare – Henry V – as well as television series. On 7 February 2010 he was cast in Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. In 2012 Edgerton visited Nepal where he saw sight restored first hand.

He is best known for his roles in 2000s and 2010s films like Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002) Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005) Animal Kingdom (2010) The Thing (2011) Warrior (2011) The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2012) and Zero Dark Thirty (2012).