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NEW YORK -- Australian actor Jason Clarke is, for now, best known as Dan the CIA Torturer in Kathryn Bigelow's hunt-for-Osama film Zero Dark Thirty. And he's matter-of-fact and accepting of the reality it portrayed.

The Hollywood community isn't, of course. Bigelow, the first woman ever to win a directing Oscar, was denied a nomination this year - largely, it's believed, because of the film's suggestion that intel from water-boarding was key to cornering the mastermind of 9/11.

"I've been following the whole issue (of torture) since Ground Zero," says Clarke, who was backpacking through Pakistan on Sept. 11, 2001 (and quickly made his way to safer ground in China).

"These things happened and this was the timeline. In a 10-year period, this was the way it started," says Clarke, who is seen in the opening scenes of Zero Dark Thirty water-boarding a suspect in the presence of fledgling agent Maya (the movie's star Jessica Chastain).