His performances have been honoured with three Awards from the Australian Film Institute (from a total of eight nominations) for his roles in the feature films A Street to Die and Emerald City, and for television in Stingers as well as the Film Critics Circle Award for Kiss or Kill and the Asian Film Festival Award for In Search of Anna. He garnered three Logie Awards for his work on television-for Essington, Good Thing Going and Janus. Most recently he won the Best Actor award at the Tampa Bay Film Festival in Florida.
Haywood was born in Billericay, Essex, England. He spent his early childhood in Chelmsford before moving to High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire where he attended High Wycombe Royal Grammar School from 1959 to 1965. He then started working in the cellars of a local wine shipper before gaining a place at E15 Acting School. After graduating in 1970 he emigrated to Australia and soon after, he was involved with Sydney's Nimrod Theatre Company and according to an interview with ABC reporter Jane Cowan, actually helped build the premises with scrap timber. He was the Artistic Director of the Pro's and Con's Playhouse at Parramatta Jail for two years. He established the drama Service on Kiribati National Radio. Chris is the Patron of the Friends of Waverley Library where he inaugurated the Waverley Library Literary Award, an annual award of $20,000 given for the quality of research for a published work of literary merit written by an Australian Writer and published in the previous 12 months.
TV credits as a writer: Alvin Purple additional material (1976)
Film credits as an actor include: The Cars That Ate Paris, Newsfront, In Search of Anna, Kostas, Breaker Morant, The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey, Running on Empty, Man of Flowers, Quigley Down Under, The Clinic (1982) Lonely Hearts, The Man From Snowy River, Strikebound, Malcolm, The Bit Part, Golden Braid, A Woman's Tale, The First Kangaroos, Muriel's Wedding, Shine, Beneath Hill 60 and Sleeping Beauty (2011). Razorback (1983), Freedom (Directed by Scott Hicks) (1981), Love is Now (2014) and Boar (2017).
Film credit as Producer: The Media Project directed by Peter Watkins (1991)
TV credits as an actor include: Homicide, Essington, Against the Wind, Five Mile Creek, Return to Eden, Waterfront, A Good Thing Going, Boys From The Bush, Water Rats, Farscape, McLeod's Daughters, All Saints, Stingers, Grass Roots, Home and Away, The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce and The Pacific. Haywood appeared in Neighbours as Walter Mitchell in June 2013.
Film credit as Casting Director: The Crater (2015)
