Charles Mesure was born Wednesday, August 12, 1970, in Somerset, England. When he was five, his family moved to Australia and he grew up in Sydney. He studied law at Sydney University and was very active in SUDS, the school's dramatic society. He sang tenor in an a capella group called Cinco. After he graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in Sydney in 1995, he moved to New Zealand where he soon got his first TV gig on "City Life." He also acted in plays at the Court and Circa theatres. He won Best Supporting Actor in 2003 for his role as DSS Kees Van Dam on "Street Legal." In 2004 he moved to the US and had guest roles on several hit series, notably 12 episodes of "Crossing Jordan" (including the landmark 100th episode) and two episodes of "Without a Trace." Both featured him in season-ending cliffhangers. In 2008, he returned to New Zealand for major roles in three series. He was nominated Best Actor in the TV Guide "Best on the Box" People's Choice Awards for his recurring role in "Outrageous Fortune." His character, Detective Sergeant Zane Gerard, was responsible for the biggest cliffhanger in NZ TV history. The second series, the award-winning family adventure "Kaitangata Twitch" with Charles as dad Carey Gallagher, finished its 13-episode run in July 2010. The same month, the complex mystery "This Is Not My Life" began 13 episodes with Charles in the lead as Alec Ross, a man who suspects his perfect family and life aren't for real. Charles returned to the US in 2009 and was cast in "V" in the recurring role of mercenary Kyle Hobbes. He was a regular on the second season that ended in March 2011. In July 2011, Charles was cast in the role of Ben Faulkner on the eighth and final season of "Desperate Housewives." Ben was Australian, a self-made construction millionaire, a man both charming and ruthless, who moved to Wisteria Lane and was immediately claimed by Renee Perry -- "Dibs!" In the last episode of the series, Ben and Renee got married. In 2013, Charles traveled to South Africa to play a drunken American playboy in "Marple: A Caribbean Mystery," based on Agatha Christie's book, and to Miami for a final-season episode of "Burn Notice" where he was a criminal computer expert. In January 2014, Charles filmed an action role in an episode of "The Mentalist." Immediately afterward, he flew to Vancouver to play the role of Blackbeard in "Once Upon a Time," sharing scenes with Colin O'Donoghue's fellow pirate Captain Hook. On Twitter, he described Blackbeard's costume as the coolest he'd ever worked in.