Showing posts with label Australian Hearld Sun Newspaper. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Australian Hearld Sun Newspaper. Show all posts

Saturday, February 23, 2008

New interview with Alex O'Loughlin in Australia's Sunday Life Magazine


Alex's film, August Rush, just premiered in Australia. The Australian newspaper, Sun Herald, included a new article & interview with him in the Sunday Life magazine insert. What a sweet description he gives of his mom's reaction to his visits. Again, he mentions the crazed fan girls scaring him. Poor baby! ;> Our Lt Carl, Brian J White, is also briefly quoted. Even his co-stars recognize that Alex has that "It" factor denoting a star. CBS is soooo lucky to have snatched him up before anyone else. I hope they remember that when making their renewal decision in May.

Click on the scan above for a larger version. Note ~ according to Alex, he was born on August 24th in 1976, which would mean he's 31 years old.

Sunday Life Magazine

Profile ~ Alex O'Loughlin

Why he looks familiar :
Another NIDA graduate, class of 2000, O'Loughlin starred in 2004's The Oyster Farmer but got his break in the US as the star of Moonlight, a TV series about vampires, which aired on Channel Nine. "I've got a six-year contract [with Moonlight], so I just try to keep my head down. I don't wash dishes any more; that's the main thing."

Why you should care :
After the Moonlight pilot aired, producer Joel Silver realised the show wasn't up to scratch and replaced the entire cast - except O'Loughlin. "A lot of times you do a pilot... and you know if pieces aren't working. And I think they knew right away they had a star in Alex and they just rebuilt around him," said co-star Brian White.

Birthplace :
Born in Canberra but grew up in Sydney. "My parents divorced when I was two. From the age of 10, I went back and forth between the two cities."

Marital Status :
He's been dating Aussie singer and former Neighbours star Holly Valance for the past 18 months and says, "It's going strong."

Family ties :
"Mum's a musician. She plays piano and has a beautiful voice, so she understands the creative need." But that doesn't mean she misses her son any less now he's living in LA. "Mum lights up when she sees me. Her cheeks go pink - she's all over me, pulling my hair, pinching my cheeks." O'Loughlin also has a sister, 31, whom he describes as a "multi-talented volleyball player, gypsy chef."

Bitten young :
"I was in a school play when I was 10 and had fish sticks stuck up my nose and I was wearing these spectacles and making the audience laugh. I remember the rush and knew I loved it."

Surreal moment :
O'Loughlin was taking a break from filming on Moonlight on the Warner Brothers' lot one day when a cart full of sightseeing women laid eyes on him. "They started screaming at the top of their lungs - it scared the shit out of me."

The move to the US was tough :
"There was a whole year, in 2005, when I wasn't getting anywhere. I had to sell my stereo and a few other things. I got my motorbike stolen, it was miserable. I was sleeping on a mate's office floor questioning my talent - that was really difficult."

Home is where the work is :
"I love the Australian industry but it's a boutique industry - the US is where it is." And while O'Loughlin admits that's changing, he can't wait around. "If I want to buy a house, I'd have to stay in Australia making movies for a hundred years."

Career highlight :
Auditioning for Casino Royale. "The screen test for James Bond was a real 'pinch yourself' moment I'll never forget."

Inspiration :
"Daniel Day-Lewis is amazing. Ryan Gosling is also an incredible actor; he's also a friend of mine... well, an acquaintance."

Next :
August Rush, with Robin Williams, is out on Thursday.

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Alex O'Loughlin Interview in the Australian Hearld Sun Newspaper

As I mentioned previously, Moonlight is premiering on Australian TV ~ Wednesday, December 12th at 9:30 PM on Channel 9. In advance of that debut, Darren Devlyn, of the Herald Sun Newspaper, did an excellent interview piece with Alex O'Loughlin. One little quibble... the reporter refers to "his character's intricately designed, painted-on tattoos." Alex has 6 tattoos that are very real, which are covered up for the show except for an accidental peek.

Here is an excerpt from the interview.....

Alex O'Loughlin, 32, who rose to prominence in Australia in the mini-series The Incredible Journey of Mary Bryant and the movie The Oyster Farmer, is in his trailer, recovering from the rigours of a previous day's work that kept him on set until 2am. Later, puffing on a cigar in a break from filming, O'Loughlin says he's taking none of this sudden international success for granted.

Waving away a billowing plume of cigar smoke, he explains how Moonlight just may be the show that rescues him from extended bouts of unemployment and the ever-present prospect of debt.

"I've been living here coming up to three years," O'Loughlin says of Los Angeles. "The government here is f----d up and it's hard to find good food that's not full of sugar, but the people here are great and I'm grateful this country has opened its arms to me and let me work here."

O'Loughlin, as Moonlight's leading man, vampire Mick St John, spends up to 16 hours a day on set. When he's done with work for the day, he heads home for a quick dinner, then starts memorising dialogue for the following day's shoot. Weekends, he says, are for sleeping.

"Time is the thing. A show like this pulls all your time away from you. Usually I'll get home from work on a Saturday about 10am (after doing night shooting) and I'll sleep until Saturday afternoon. Saturday night and Sunday I'm usually feeling wiped out and I've not seen Holly all week. It's a pretty full-on life, but what do you do? I love my work and there are sacrifices."

"The first year I was here I was auditioning all the time and got no work," O'Loughlin says.

"I had no money and a piece of s--- car and in the end I had to hock things like my stereo to get by. I was just doing anything to scrape by, working on a building site for $15 an hour.

"There were times I was thinking, 'What am I doing, this is crazy'. I was scared because I had no money and no ticket home.

"That is the time when everyone else packs up and leaves. But I remembered everything my grandfather taught me about the work ethic before he died. He was brought up out in the bush and his advice was 'put your head down and keep working, son, and you'll get what's coming to you'. You just push through.

"This is the first time I've been paid (in the US) and, mate, it's nice not having to worry about making the rent.

"I did a Warner Bros film and it actually cost me 10 grand to do it. You might scratch your head and say how can that be, but trust me.

"You go from doing independent films where you're getting paid very little or it's costing you to do work to get your career going. Then, overnight, you start getting paid if you keep pushing through. You accumulate 10 to 20 years of debt and if you stick at this and are lucky, you can start paying it off.

"I've got to tell you, man, it's (success) not always about having great talent. Great talent does not always equate to success.

"I do not think I'm a great talent. I think I'm a medium talent, but I think I understand the business and enjoy the business. It's a right-place-at-the-right-time kind of business, but it's also about perseverance."

You can read the entire article here ~

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22873887-5006022,00.html