It’s not easy charming women journalists, but during a small lunch gathering on the Paramount lot recently, Alex O’Loughlin left the group completely bewitched.

Well, that’s what happens when an Aussie rascal warbles out the lyrics to his favorite childhood show, Monkey, which was immensely popular in Australia. Monkey, so the song goes, was “the punkiest monkey that ever popped” and fought evil demons with his band of friends.

Whether he’s fighting bad vampires and evil-doers, or trying to save lives at a transplant hospital in Pittsburgh, Alex can always pull out the Monkey Magic theme song to inspire him.

The 34-year-old actor offered a powerful performance in a seven-episode story arc in the 2007 season of The Shield, but it was his role as the vampire trying to get off the juice on the CBS show Moonlight that same year that turned him into star with a massive Internet following.

And when CBS decided to cancel the show last year, fans went ballistic. But no amount of blood drives or ad campaigns could save the show. Still, CBS knew they had a star in Alex, and kept him in the talent stable.

Now he’s starring in the CBS medical drama Three Rivers (premiering at 9 p.m. Oct. 4) as a tortured transplant surgeon. Alex says he hopes his fans will get behind his new show the way they did with Moonlight.

“It was the first time I’ve been overwhelmed from fans. It was like strange and a little surreal,” Alex said during the post-lunch set visit.

In the beginning, he admits, it was almost too much to handle.

“At first it’s kind of spooky opening those letters, hundreds and hundreds of letters, from people who know so much about you, yet have had no real interaction with you,” Alex says. “But I’m much more comfortable with it now.”

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