Alex with Marty Bass & Don Scott on WJZ in 2009 – Talking about Three Rivers.
(Transcript)
Marty: Last year we had a show called Moonlight. Here it is right there. [Show article about cancellation of Moonlight] And it never went quite anywhere, but the star Alex O’Loughlin. really got a lot of great press. You know the vampire thing is pretty big still.
Female reporter: Yeah, it is.
Marty: He got enough press and CBS decided to give him another show. And this is a real interesting hospital, type show. It’s about a transplant hospital. And it stars a former vampire. Take it away ….
Marty: Ladies and gentleman welcome Alex O’Loughlin, Dr Andy Yablonski, to the morning addition. How are you?
Alex: Good morning.
Marty: How’s life today in Los Angeles?
Alex: Life is lovely in Los Angeles. It’s very early here. I don’t think the sun is up yet, but I think it’s going to be another glorious day, because every day in Los Angeles is glorious.
Don: So I hear.
Marty: So, show business is treating you well. It’s like wait a minute, I’m a star of a CBS show, I’m a movie star and they run my rear end out of bed at 4:30 am pacific.
Alex: That’s [laughs]… There’s nothing glamorous about what I do mate. That’s the most common misconception about being an actor, is that …. It’s very rarely glamorous. It’s often just red eyes and Starbucks, tumbling into some weird little studio somewhere to do this.
Don: So is local news, I can tell you.
Alex: There you go. [Laughs]
Marty: Hey listen; let’s talk Three Rivers here for a second. This is it a real interesting concept on the old medical theme – a transplant hospital. It’s pretty current. Or is it too much ahead of the curve?
Alex: Absolutely not. I think it’s ….. I don’t think it is ahead of the curve at all. I mean it’s something that going on for a long …. for a long time. I mean transplant medicine is not a new thing. It’s actually … It’s actually so advanced now, it’s almost easier than auto mechanics. You know, I’ve never seen a show that is based …. That’s based in organ transplant …. where transplant, is the core of the show. And it is the core of our show.
We also have …. The great thing about this is that we also have the sort of technology of for instance a CSI, but in this hospital. This New Age hospital in Pittsburgh, where the show is set. So I’m very, very excited to see how this show is … is received by America.
Marty: I’m you know … I understand about the transplant technology. I mean Baltimore is home to Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland hospital, which have pioneered a lot of the technic and or treatments before and after, but I mean ….
Don: And the multiple ones, the ones that lead to another, that leads to another, that leads to another …
Marty: ….. but I was just curious, about when it comes to a TV series. Did you ever think yourself, when your agent came to you, that, “Wow, are we here on TV series yet?“
Alex: As the actor in the show, it’s not my …. The artistic vision does not necessarily belong to me. I have to … I have to give a certain amount of faith to the showrunner, you know, to the producer. To know that they have a vision for the future. But I saw ….. it was very clear to me that there were many, many stories to be told in this script that I read for Three Rivers, for the pilot.
Because it’s told from … and it’s also different, because we tell it from three points of view. The donor, the recipient and the medical team. And I’ve never seen a medical show told like this before. And so … yeah.
Don: As an actor changing roles, does it seem ironic at all to you, you are going from being a vampire, a very famous vampire, to being somebody now who saves lives?
Alex: I was going to say, “Yeah, and also I go from someone who drinks buckets of blood to someone who sort of paddles around and plays around in blood”.
Marty: You guys are burning too many brain cells on this.
Alex: Some kind of blood in my contract.
Don: No, it is kind of ironic.
Marty: I just want you to know…
Alex: [Laughs]
Don: I did not expect to get into all that blood.
Marty: …. did you stay up late last night to dream up that question?
Don: No, I get it. It’s quite a different role.
Alex: No, in all seriousness it is a different role and …. And that’s …. As an actor that’s all I can hope for is to do roles that are as different from one to the next as possible. I mean, my dream career is to just constantly play roles that are antithetical to one another and bounce back and forth and be as diverse and as sort of transformational as I can be.
And as I get older, and as I get better at what I do, hopefully, that will happen more and more. And I don’t ever want to play the same thing over and over again.
Marty: Hey listen, very good.
Alex: Yeah.
Marty: You know what’s been great? We have been battling this like 2-second satellite delay, and we …. the three of us proved that we’re television geniuses pulling this off. So congratulations. That’s the truth.
Alex: Congratulations gentleman, you’ve done very well.
Marty: You have too. Listen, good luck on the series.
Alex: Thank you.
Marty: And Sunday 9 o’clock here on WJZ CBS, Three Rivers. As we would say here in Baltimore, “You’re an alright guy”. You passed the audition. You’re back any time you’re on a bird.
Alex: Thank you.
Marty: See you later.
Video:
Alex O´Loughlin ~ An Intense Study 