Behind The Scenes Trivia of Mary Bryant – #AlexOloughlin and His Characters

We continue our series of trivia around Alex’s other roles…..

This time we look at ‘The Incredible Journey of Mary Bryant’, with Alex in the role of Will Bryant, Mary’s husband.

• The mini-series was filmed in Australia in the spring of 2004, on a $15 million budget, making it Australia’s biggest mini-series ever. (I would guess it was up until that time – I wonder if anything bigger has been done since then?) (And remember that spring in Australia (the Southern hemisphere) is from September to November )
• Filming took 12 weeks to complete.
• The ship used throughout the production is The Bounty, which was also used in the Mel Gibson movie of the same name. It is the only ship actually used in Mary Bryant, all other ships were either digitally reproduced or came from shots purchased from ‘The Bounty’ or the UK ‘Hornblower’ TV series.
• It mostly rained during the shoot on the ship, which gave the movie the right look but made the cast and crew miserable.

• The Aborigines in the film were brought in from Alice Springs.
• Iva Davies (the former lead singer of Icehouse) is responsible for the score.
• Director Peter Andrikidis on Alex O’Loughlin:

“That’s a thinking actor, that’s Alex. Every moment he’s making sure that he’s giving two hundred percent, which makes my job a lot easier.”

He also calls Alex “a fantastic actor” and “a NIDA boy who’s learned a lot”.

• Anousha Zarkesh, who took care of the Australian casting, is actor David Field’s wife.
• Alex O’Loughlin was one of the last leads to be cast.
• It took the makeup department three hours to cover Alex’s tattoos for the shirtless scene in the ship’s hold.

• The cast were given two weeks to improve their rowing skills and learn how to fire muskets.
• It was decided that the convict cast should have a Northern English accent instead of a Cornish accent, to make it easier for Australian audiences to understand.
• The water sequences of the escapees in the cutter were filmed in the Whitsunday Islands, in the same area where Dead Calm with Nicole Kidman was filmed.
• The beach scenes were filmed at Garie Beach in Royal National Park, south of Sydney.

• It would have required a crane to move the beached cutter. What you see is the camera panning away as the actors pretend to move the boat.
• The idea of Charlotte wearing Will’s shoes while she is sleeping with her feet resting against him came from Alex.
• Stephen Curry wore a Stinger Suit underneath his clothes in the scene where William Allen’s dead body was committed to the sea.
• Romola Garai chipped a bone in her left arm when she put her hands up in the air and got hit by a ceiling fan. Production had to be shut down for a day when she was flown to Sydney from the Whitsundays to consult a specialist. In the scene on Timor when Mary and Will walk towards each other on the beach, she has both lower arms covered to hide her cast. It shows when he picks her up and swings her around.

• During a rehearsal, Alex picked Romola up the wrong way and unintentionally hurt her badly enough to make her scream.
• Alex O’Loughlin drew out Will’s death scene longer than Peter Andrikidis initially intended, but the director ended up loving Alex’s version.
• The tropical Timor set was built at Concord Repatriation General Hospital, beside the Parramatta River in Sydney.
• Peter Andrikidis and Alex O’Loughlin had worked with each other before in BlackJack: Sweet Science.
• Mary Bryant marks the fourth production in which Alex O’Loughlin has worked with David Field. Other productions are Oyster Farmer, BlackJack: Sweet Science, and Feed.

• In 2005, Alex O’Loughlin and Romola Garai received Australian Film Institute nominations for Best Lead Actor and Best Lead Actress in Television. Although they did not win, the production did win an AFI Award for Best Telefeature or Mini-Series.
• In 2006, Mary Bryant also won a Logie for Most Outstanding Miniseries/Telemovie. Alex O’Loughlin and Romola Garai were both nominated for a Silver Logie in the categories Most Outstanding Actor and Most Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series.
• The mini-series has also won awards at the Chicago International Film Festival in 2006 (Best Mini-Series and Special Achievement: Direction for Peter Andrikidis)
• and the New York Festivals in 2007 (Best Mini-Series, Drama Mini-Series).

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#AlexOLoughlin As An Emotional Will Bryant

I just try to carry the sense of integrity and authenticity I had in the beginning of my career, because I think that’s what makes people interested in you in the first place.

It’s important not to lose that.

– Alex O’Loughlin, Movieline, 19 April 2010

• Mary Bryant was filmed entirely in Australia during in 2004 on a $15 million budget, making it Australia’s biggest mini-series up until that time.

• In 2005, Alex O’Loughlin and Romola Garai received Australian Film Institute nominations for Best Lead Actor and Best Lead Actress in Television. They did not win, but the production did win an AFI Award for Best Telefeature or Mini Series.
• In 2006, Mary Bryant also won a Logie for Most Outstanding Miniseries/Telemovie. Alex O’Loughlin and Romola Garai were both nominated for a Silver Logie in the categories Most Outstanding Actor and Most Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series.

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• The mini-series has also won awards at the Chicago International Film Festival in 2006 (Best Mini-Series and Special Achievement: Direction for Peter Andrikidis)
• and the New York Festivals in 2007 – Best Mini-Series, Drama Mini-Series.

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 That’s a thinking actor, that’s Alex.

Every moment he’s making sure that he’s giving two hundred percent, which makes my job a lot easier.

– Director Peter Andrikidis on Alex O’Loughlin

You can also read and see more about it here:

 Mary Bryant was a wonderful learning experience

#AlexOLoughlin is Playing Cops and Robbers

None of us are just purely benevolent or malevolent.  I mean, it’s not possible in human nature, unless you’re Ghandi.

The more flaw you bring to a character or the more balance you give your character with flaw, the closer that character moves towards everyman, you know.  And if that character is an everyman, then we can all sit back and relate to them like we can’t relate to a superhero.

 – Alex O’Loughlin, TVaddict, 4 August  2010

Spoiler alert! Please remember if you haven’t seen all Alex’s work, there might be some spoilers here.

Part 1

– Finding himself on the wrong side of the law.

Maybe it’s because I know Simon so well, I understood exactly what he meant with the character, and I hope that I conveyed it through my performance, and if I haven’t, I apologize in advance, but I understood Vincent’s anguish, and I understood the desire for salvation, and I think before the end, he rests assured of himself. He’s not all bad.

— Alex O’Loughlin, MyTakeOnTV, 29 April  2009

Criminal Minds made me wonder if it is the specific roles he chooses to play or if it his acting abilities, but it always seems like Alex make you feel sorry for the criminal he plays at the end.

He succeeds in bringing you the humanity of someone like Vincent, who is the worst kind of murderer.

 

In Whiteout we will never know if Russell has been a criminal his whole life or if he just turned bad because of opportunity, when the carrot of extreme wealth was too big and the temptation to strong to get rich quickly.

It did seem easy for him to kill, maybe it got easier after the first one or maybe he had done it before?

 

In The Invisible he again creates this feeling of a character whose life has been tough on him and even his girlfriend does not stay loyal to him (not that he was very loyal to her) ……

Was he really a bad person or did life just deal him a bad hand?

As Marcus, Alex creates this sympathy you feel for him while the detective is questioning him. (well that and he looks so amazing during this scene)

 

Feed – could there be any worst kind of criminal. Somebody that exploits the vulnerability of helpless woman addicted to food and in the end addicted to his affection (Well who can blame them, if your reward for eating yourself to death, is to see him in all his naked glory?)
But still in the end you want to cheer for Michael, like Deirdre ……..

Has there ever been a more adorable criminal in the history, than Will Bryant in Mary Bryant? I never know if they play down the criminal element of the people who were convicted and send to Australia to create sympathy for them, or if they where just a bunch of unfortunate souls that where living in a time that mother England wanted to start a new colony and found reasons to do so.

 

I am sorry to say, I haven’t had the privilege yet to see BlackJack: Sweet Science. From what I read about it and the screen caps I have seen, it looks like, Luke was a boy who turned bad because of his past and the general ineptness of the police. And again the emotions from Alex that is displayed in what I have seen, show that he was doing a good job with it.

 

In Oyster Farmer Alex plays Jack Flange, the most harmless criminal. He turns to crime out of a pure heart. Did old man Mumbles save his “soul” or would his good nature have made him save himself at the end?

 

Part 2

– Is he playing Good Cop or Bad Cop?

I’ve been doing a lot of reading and spending a lot of time with the LAPD guys. I’ve been doing that and going out shooting lots of guns and sort of rolling with these cops and just talking to them and just doing as much research stuff as I can.

—  Alex O’Loughlin, IGN.com, June 2006

The Shield is the first television role for Alex in the USA. As Kevin, he was a little bit like a fish out of water with his new colleagues. In the end he just could not be bad like them……

 

At the moment we are seeing Alex in his biggest role thus far. Hawaii Five-0 is seen as an all-around success and they just started filming Season 3.
As a law man Steve is kind off unconventional because he did not do specific police training and he never worked within a department where he was overseen by a Head of Police.

The bottom line is Steve McGarrett doesn’t care what anyone thinks.

But there’s something lovable about that, it doesn’t come from ego or self-importance, he has a mission and he’s following that through.

— Alex O’Loughlin,  The Sun-Herald, 30 January 2011

In Season 1 they were given free rein to do whatever they wanted and used any method that came to mind as long as they got the job done…..

And in Season 2 they were supposed to be “better” controlled……

In Moonlight, Alex plays a PI that assists the police to solve crimes that they have difficulty with. In the original pilot Mick talks about him being up many a dark alley and that he knows things that the ordinary police do not have access to……..

Once in a while he would also stray to the side of vigilante ….. and it is debatable if he is really still on the right side of the law by doing that?

I really enjoyed Alex as Deputy Eric Fraser in Man-Thing. He was playing a character so far removed from himself. In what little screen time he had, he really gave his young man life and you feel sympathy for his life of being a law man but having to deal with the gruesome results of a monsters work.

 

So let’s recap. Alex has been on the wrong side of the law playing an oyster farming market robber, a smuggling sailor, a serial killer that feeds women to death, a serial killer that does bad things like daddy did, a car thief and a diamond thief murderer.

On the right side of the law he has been an ignorant small town deputy, an out of depth detective, a vigilante vampire PI and a Navy SEAL cop.

All of them memorable performances … the cops were never all good and the murders and thieves never all bad.

Alex managed to find the humanity in all of them and created great empathy in mostly all of them. What more can a storyteller want?

Goodbye Sweetie ….. till next time

Goodbye girls ……. I’ll be around soon!

Vote for the best of the best – Find Your Favorite #AlexOLoughlin Screen Kiss!

It´s time to cast your vote on our latest poll.

Here is some of  Alex’s on-screen kisses to choose from (sadly no real life material available).

Please vote for the moment of passion, your fantasy world loves best (well we know it´s hard to choose just one, when you probably took part in every single one of them).

1) Will and Mary Bryant:

Mary Bryant

By the time they shared this kiss, they had been locked up with lots of other inmates, in a ship´s hull for months. He had seen her giving birth and they had just married. No wonder there is such passion behind it!

2) Steve McGarrett and Catherine Rollins:

Hawaii Five-0

These two really look hungry……for each other that is.

3) Mick St John and Beth Turner

Moonlight

Just get a room and get it over with…pleeeeeeeeeeeeease!

4) Mick and  Coraline St John

Moonlight

The passion that blinded, consumed and haunted him……and drove her mad!

5) Jack and Pearl:

Oyster Farmer

At last we found the perfect spot……. 😀

6) Dr Andy Yablonski and Dr Lisa Reed:

Three Rivers

In your arms I will find comfort…..you are kissing all the pain away!

7) Stan and Zoe:

The Back-Up Plan

I know I will be your best kiss ever…..I just know it!

#AlexOLoughlin – It’s Time To Say Goodbye!

I think really if there’s nothing out there in the dark, then once we’re dead we’re just dead and all religion, all spiritual belief, is redundant. So there has to be something else, or what’s the point? And if we accept that there has to be something… then there can be anything.

—  Alex O’Loughlin, Sydney Morning Herald, December 2007

SPOILER ALERT – If you haven’t seen all of Alex’s work, this might really give away the surprises of the work we refer to!

Where does an actor like Alex go to, to find the emotions of dying. For almost anything else they have to portray, they can go back somewhere to find something to relate too. But none of the living really knows what it is to die. I have always wondered if it is uncomfortable for an actor to “die” or play dead.

To be killed by a monster is kind of easy – it is total and brutal fear that you experience. And here we can see Deputy Eric Fraser’s last moments on earth. The thing he feared most in life, got to him, The Man-Thing!

What emotions flash through your mind when you know, this is the end. It is inevitable I am about to die and I want to do it with honour.

Apparently Alex extended the scene of Will Bryant being shot and dying much longer, than what was originally planned, but the director liked Alex’s version of it so much that he decided to use it. You decide for yourself….

(Of course the real life Will Bryant died of fever on the ship on his way back to England, but what can be more dramatic than to be killed by your wife’s lover? However I am certain Alex would have “killed” a death, dying of fever, just as well)

You live by the sword, you die by the sword. In The Invisible we have two lovers Marcus and Annie, who took their passion and their criminal behavior so far, that they kill each other in the end. (Not that we know if he really died)

In Moonlight, Mick the human, dies twice.

First by the hand of his wife Coraline, who feels that by “killing” him she is giving him eternal life.

The second, by the fangs of his best friend Josef, when he begs him to do it.

This time he is driven by love…..

“Kill me for Beth, My Beth!”

In Whiteout it seems Russell gets what´s coming to him.

He kills a few people in cold blood, out of pure greed, and in the end he meets a horrible death at the hands of nature itself.

As I am typing this, I can’t help but cry, thinking of Alex as Vincent in Criminal Minds.

Those touching words of guilt from Vincent,  towards a boy he related to after killing the boy’s mother. Seeing himself in that boy made him realise the monster in himself! FORGIVE ME.

Was there redemption in those words? Did the dying Vincent find peace for his soul? How is it that you want to cry at the death of this serial killer “monster”.

All I can say is Bravo ALEX, BRAVO!!

I think the spirit of the man himself is beyond salvation and that’s what I as the actor went for, you know?

— Alex O’Loughlin, MyTakeOnTV, 29 April 2009

Goodbye Sweetie………we know we’ll see you soon, because your present Ohana has got your six!

With Steve there will be good times and there will be bad times, but you’ll always be able to smile at the end…..

Goodbye girls….