Career
Apart from acting in numerous films and television shows, he also wrote, directed and produced the films Ten Empty (2008), New Skin (2002) and Sweet Dreams (2002). Ten Empty had its World Premiere at the Sydney Film Festival (2008). Sweet Dreams (2002) was voted most popular film by the audience at the Street Kilda Film Festival in 2003.
Hayes also earned American Film Institute and Film Critics Circle award nominations for The Boys.
Although primarily a screen actor, Hayes does voice over work as well. Joel Edgerton nicknamed him "The King of Western Grit" during the shooting of The Square, The moniker later became the name of a Facebook page, with a collection of movie posters with Hayes" face on them.
In April 2015, Hayes was criticized for being an organiser of the #saveourboys video featuring (among many Australian citizens) Film/celebrities including: Bryan Brown, Guy Pearce, Geoffrey Rush, Joel Edgerton, Luke Hemsworth, Brendan Cowell and Peter Helliar. The video called upon Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to step up and secure the lives of reformed drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran in the last 24 hours before their execution.
In the video, Hayes himself said: "show some ticker Tony Abbott.
Get to Indonesia. lieutenant"s your job." The video went viral and amassed much support on social media pages. Despite many stating the government had done all it can leading up to their deaths, it was later revealed by human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson Queen's Counsel that a number of avenues could have been taken.