#AlexOLoughlin and The Holiday – Trivia

In December last year, an article popped up that inspired me to finish this old trivia post …..

It is not often that an actor is credited for a non-speaking part in a movie – but Alex O’Loughlin and Odette Yutsman (Annabel) as the “Kissing Couple“, are listed in the credits at the end of the movie The Holiday. Because of this credit in the movie, it also appears on the IMDb filmography lists.

Because the movie is regarded as a Christmas movie, there was an article about it on Christmas day last year. The article mentions all the odd actors who made random appearances in the movie. Some are very famous and landed in the movie by accident and are not credited for it, unlike Alex and Odette and others who got credited for it for their short silent appearances.

 

You can read the full article here:

9 actors you might have overlooked in The Holiday

It’s one of the most popular Christmas movies, but even hardcore fans might have forgotten the famous faces who appear alongside Jude Law, Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet and Jack Black. 

And here is an excerpt from the article where it mentions Alex:

The fake trailer was shot very quickly, in just a day and a half. Odette Annable and Alex O’Loughlin as The Kissing Couple.

Annable is most known for playing Dr Jessica Adams on House MD and, more recently, Geri Broussard on Walker. She appears in the very first scene of The Holiday, as part of an on-screen couple from a film, to which Miles is composing the score. Credited as the woman from the “Kissing Couple, Annable wears a long, white, period drama-esque dress and kisses a man, played by Alex O’Loughlin, by a river in the countryside.

O’Loughlin, known for his role as Steve McGarrett in Hawaii Five-0, played the other half of the “Kissing Couple” in the first scene of The Holiday.

In 2014  we posted an old article about Odette and her thoughts on it here:

#AlexOLoughlin and Odette Yustman K-I-S-S-I-N-G … for 8 hours

This is what she had to say:

“It’s so funny, in this business, you get asked to do certain things, and you do a lot of it to have contact with some big names and just get experience. I remember my agent calling and saying, ‘There’s this small part at the start of the movie, and (writer-director) Nancy Meyers would love to meet you.’ And I thought, ‘How can I pass that up? Absolutely!’

I met her, then I ended up having to kiss this guy for hours! It was a tricky shot because you had to get the angle right, so it was very specific; I’d say we were there for a good eight hours, at least. We were troupers, though.

I was in good company, and it was just a fun little thing. It’s one of those things you do when you’re just starting out.”

The movie was filmed between January and June 2006 and was released at the end of that same year.

 But how did Alex end up in this short intro to the movie, The Holiday?

I guess part of the answer can be found in a book that was published in 2006. It tells the stories of two ladies who work for a company called, The Casting Company, that was doing a lot of castings on big Hollywood projects over the years.

A Star Is Found: Our Adventures Casting Some of Hollywood’s Biggest Movies

By Janet Hirshenson, Jane Jenkins

About the book

For anyone who’s ever walked out of a movie and said, “That guy was all wrong for the part,” comes this first-of-its-kind look at how actors are chosen and careers are born. Two of the top casting directors in the business, who recently cast the much-lauded choice of Daniel Craig as the new James Bond, offer an insider’s tour of their crucial craft-spotting stars in the making.

Janet and Jane share the fascinating, funny stories of discovering and casting then-unknown stars such as Julia Roberts, Tom Cruise, Leonardo DiCaprio, John Cusack, Matt Damon, Jennifer Connelly, Virginia Madsen, Joaquin Phoenix, Meg Ryan, Benicio Del Toro, and the Harry Potter kids.

Taking us from the first casting call through head shots, auditions, meetings, and desperate searches to fill a part, they give us the kind of behind-the-scenes access to the machinery of star-making that captivates movie fans and aspiring actors alike.

 

Excerpts from the book: 

Recently we auditioned the young Australian actor Alex O’Loughlin, first to become the next James Bond and then for a part in Nancy Meyers’s The Holiday. Even though he didn’t get either of the parts, this relatively unknown guy’s stock took a big leap skyward. Being counted for two significant projects gave his desirability a nice little bump. He’s a wonderful actor, and he deserves anything he gets, but the increased “hotness” factor from two unsuccessful auditions increased his chances of being cast in bigger parts and more significant movies.

From what I could gather it the book, they considered Alex for the part that Jude Law played in the end (but that was initially written with Hugh Grant in mind)

About the casting of the main character in The Holiday, they wrote:

I’d been auditioning James Bond candidates at the same time, so we considered several of them for The Holiday, including Alex O’Loughlin (too young and not yet a Star) and Daniel Craig (Nancy didn’t think he was funny enough – and not yet a Star; he hadn’t yet been chosen for Bond)

My guess is that they later remembered Alex and in the end at least got him in to do the kissing scene with Odette ….

 Link to Video: (with some added interest for the Moonlight fans)

The first 2 Minutes of the movie “The Holiday” with Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jack Black aaaaaand Alex O’Loughlin as one half of a kissing couple 😉 and not to forget Shannyn Sossamon as Maggie 🙂

 

They might not have cast him for any roles at the time, but the then 28-year-old, young Alex O’Loughlin definitely made a lasting impression on them. Quite a compliment from the two who discovered a lot of now very famous actors over the years!

Their thoughts on Alex after the Bond audition:

The age issue turned out to be stickier than we’d expected. We were all excited about Alex O’Loughlin, for example, partly because he was so young.

Alex is a terrifically sexy, masterful, and take-charge guy — just the type who can make you remember that James Bond is a seriously dangerous man. And he might make a fabulous Bond in a few years, but when we saw him, he just didn’t seem old enough for that 007 sense of command.

Unfortunately “a few years” turned into 17 years now, and Alex in his later 40s became too old to begin a career as Bond.

One can never say never, but the odds are against him. And with all the injuries he sustained while being Steve McGarrett, portraying a character like 007, the action hero, might also not be in his taste to do anymore …..

But hopefully, other casting directors will remember him from this book and also the wonderful body of work he has done since then … and give him that dream role all his fans have been waiting for!

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