#AlexOLoughlin doing a Moonlight Interview: ‘I’m Obsessed with Vampires’ – January 2008

While Aussie actor Alex O’Loughlin sees the lighter side of life, he has always harboured a gothic streak.

TV Soap

by Paulette Cohn

9 January 2008

For Sydney-born[sic] actor Alex O’Loughlin to be cast as 90-year-old vampire in the super natural series Moonlight fulfills a prophecy.

“I have been kind of obsessed with the genre since I first discovered it, since I could first get my head around it,” the actor tells TV SOAP.

“I discovered (author) Anne Rice in my late teens, and I read Interview with a Vampire – the first of the Vampire Chronicles – twice, actually, which was a little obsessive. I loved her character developement and I loved her mythology of vampires, so I have always wanted to play a vampire.”

O’Loughlin’s contemporary vampire, a private investigator named Mick St John, won’t be biting necks to quench his blood lust. Rather synthetic blood will be his poison.

The original pilot for the series was thrown out and recast, with O’Loughlin the sole survivor of the purge, so the show has yet to be seen and, according to its star it will have a tongue-in-cheek element.

“When I read the character, the first quality I really related to was his humour,” he says.

“He really has a dark humour. I am not as dark as he is. I see the lighter side of things. I see the comedy in life.”

It’s a good thing he does, because the 32-year-old has already had to deal with some strange rumours floating about the internet about his parentage. Postings claim he’s the illegitimate son of late AC/DC legend, Bon Scott.

“I don’t know how it started,” O’Loughlin explains.

“I got a phone call from a friend, then I Google-searched it and it was all over the internet and tabloids. It wasn’t that it was a negative rumour, it was interesting to me that something completely fictitious could actually make it that far and that quickly.”

While O’Loughlin wasn’t too fazed, the same couldn’t be said for his mother, who was mistakenly labelled a groupie. The good son that he is, O’Loughlin sets the record straight,

“My father is a teacher in Sydney. He teaches physics and astronomy at a private boys’ school.”

Another cyberspace rumour about the actor is that he auditioned to be 007 and lost the James Bond role to Daniel Craig. But that one is true.

“I met Martin Campbell (Director of Casino Royale) and he asked me to fly to London to test,” he recalls.

“It was the biggest screen test I had ever done. We had tuxedoes and suits and haircuts. I think I was a bit young to be honest. I think in five years I will be a good Bond. Remember that!”

While Bond is the ultimate ladies man, O’Loughlin lives in Los Angeles with just one; former Neighbours star and pop diva Holly Valance.

He plays the guitar, writes songs and keep in shape by running and rock climbing. While he is now comfortable in his surrounds, and with Moonlight promising some stability, O’Loughlin admits the initial transition from Sydney to LA was tough, despite spending several years jetting between the two for auditions.

“To shift over here, it took me a good six months to figure out how much time I had to spend in my car (to get from A to B), how far I had to go for coffee, and where to get my bread and milk!” he says.

My Thoughts

• This is one of those early articles that created confusion about where Alex was born. It has been confirmed by him in other interviews that he was born in Canberra, not Sydney as written in this article. Just shows you not to just blindly trust everything you read.
• They say in the article that Mick drank synthetic blood – according to my knowledge he drank real human blood, but not directly from people. He got his blood from the morgue.
• I hope you enjoyed the beautiful pictures of Mick/Alex, that Paula got for us, just as much as I did ….

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