“There was a point four years ago when I was living on my mate Sam Gould’s couch for more than a year – so long that my back went out.
I had my swag with me and I had to move on to the floor. At that point I’d run out of money. A Ducati motorcycle, the only thing I owned, had been stolen and the insurance money had run out and I couldn’t get arrested in this town”
– Alex O’Loughlin, Herald Sun, 14 October 2009
For most of us a couch is a couch. It is something you sit on. Other people might have different connections with it. Somebody visiting a psychiatrist might see it as an object of therapy. For someone a specific couch can hold some erotic memories of a special encounter involving it …..
Like I said, we all have our different feelings towards them. They are either seen as just another piece of furniture or as part of a memory.
Alex seemed to take his real life experiences with couches to our screens. Is it life imitating art or is it art imitating life?
In Moonlight poor Mick St John denied himself the luxury of even owning a bed. Don’t know if he just never wanted to be reminded of its comfort or maybe the possibility of passion surrounding it, but he opted not to have one.
When he eventually needed one, he had to make do with his couch.
And when he had to offer Beth some place to sleep on, she also had to sleep on a couch. (Better than sleeping in Mick’s freezer, Beth …. or is it?)
In The Back-Up Plan, Stan and Zoe technically had their first fight right after they made love for the first time …… and it seems the farmhouse was so small, that with Zoe sleeping in the bedroom, Alex as Stan had no other choice but to take the couch once again……
With Alex’s latest show Hawaii Five-0, the mystery of why only couches are used, where he apparently lives in one bedroom houses, continues.
In Episode 2:01, after Max patched up Steve’s wound, he got him onto the couch. Also no extra bed or bedroom available here it seems ……
And another mystery to me – how did tiny Max get unconscious SuperSEAL Steve from the bathroom floor onto that couch?
In Episode 2:09, Danny moved in as Steve’s house guest, after loosing his accommodation, and low and behold, he sleeps on the couch.
Is this all just pure coincidence, is there a pattern here or is it just a special affinity for couches on Alex’s side? Maybe because they are better than sleeping on the floor…….?
“I had nothing. I ended up sleeping on my pal’s office floor while his house was getting sand-blasted and all the floors were being done.
The office was sealed off in plastic, so I was literally living in this plastic bubble while the rest of the house was being worked on. I had really dark thoughts in that time. I was very depressed, and I went through a lot of pain. I couldn’t see beyond each day.
That might sound overly dramatic, but that’s what I experienced. I didn’t know what to do. I had a good friend who came by every morning and took me for coffee and worked out the plan for every day. I didn’t have the money to go home to Australia even if I’d wanted to. It was friendship that kept me strong. Eventually I just thought, “What the hell! Until you hit your knees, it’s not worth it anyway.”
– Alex O’Loughlin, FilmInk, June 2010
Goodbye Sweetie……..see you soon (and I promise I will put you in my a bed after I use the stun gun on you………)
Ouch…….is all that force really necessary?
Goodbye girls……
Alex O´Loughlin ~ An Intense Study 