Source: T.connectv
Date: October 14, 2009

Playing a surgeon in Channel 10′s medical drama Three Rivers has had a profound effect on Australian actor Alex O’Loughlin writes Colin Vickery.

Aussie actor Alex O’Loughlin’s Hollywood career may have cost him his relationship with Holly Valance but it has brought him the starring role in new US medical drama Three Rivers.

O’Loughlin and Valance split last February after four years together. The writing was on the wall when O’Loughlin was starring in cult vampire series Moonlight. He had spent years trying to ignite his US acting career and wasn’t going to let the chance slip.

“I’m usually feeling wiped out and I’ve not seen Holly all week. It’s pretty full-on life, but what do you do? I love my work and there are sacrifices,” O’Loughlin told The Daily Telegraph in 2007.

The consolation for O’Loughlin’s relationship break-up is landing the role of leading transplant surgeon Dr. Andy Yablonski on Three Rivers, which premieres tonight on Channel 10.

The drama goes inside the emotionally complex lives of organ donors, the recipients and the surgeons. It is high stakes – a race against the clock where surgeons are the last hope for their patients.

O’Loughlin’s character is based on real-life heart transplant surgeon Dr. Gonzo Gonzalez-Stawinski.

“When I was first handed the script I knew it would work but I wasn’t sure I was the right man for the job”, O’Loughlin admits. “It is one thing to play dress-ups and have a great time and shoot guns [on shows such as The Shield and Criminal Minds] but with this script I was playing a real character and it involved real stories.

“For me, whenever I play a role I try to immerse myself in it but this seemed so immense, to get to any sort of level of honesty and truth. I didn’t think I could pull it off.”

O’Loughlin is known for his modesty. “I do not think I’m a great talent. I think I’m a medium talent but it’s about perseverance,” he said in 2007.

He only had the confidence to tackle Yablonski on Three Rivers after he spoke to Gonzalez-Stawinksi.

“We spoke on the phone for hours and then he asked me to stay at his house,” O’Loughlin says. “I saw nine open-heart procedures with him. We got on straight away and now he’s a friend for life.”

O’Loughlin’s mother is a nurse and he can remember following her on her hospital rounds but he admits he knew nothing about medicine before Three Rivers.

Standing shoulder to shoulder with Gonzalez-Stawinksi was a life-changing experience for the actor.

“After I spent my first 10 hours in an operating room watching a man being brought back to life, I sat in my hotel room for three hours and felt this deep sense of regret that I was watching my calling [medicine] before me and that I’d taken the wrong direction [acting] in my career,” O’Loughlin says.

“I’ve got to know people who were sick through no fault of their own and now they are dead and all they wanted was a bit more of life – simple stuff like the chance to water the garden. I also realized that physicians have the capacity to love the unlovable. The most awful person you can imagine could be lying on the hospital bed and the physician will say to them ‘everything will be OK’. Learning to get in touch with that part of me as a young alpha Aussie male has been a struggle and one of the greatest experiences so far in my career.”

O’Loughlin’s acting career began in 2003 with an appearance on Ten crime drama White Collar Blue and he starred opposite Kerry Armstrong and Jack Thompson in The Oyster Farmer the following year. TV mini-series Mary Bryant was another early highlight.

Relocating to the US was a mighty big step and O’Loughlin’s Hollywood success is an inspiring example of the power of persistence in the face of rejection and doubt.

The first year he auditioned constantly but got no work. He did anything to scrape by, including working on a building site for $15 an hour.

His fortunes turned in 2007 with a seven-episode stint in The Shield (as Detective Kevin Hiatt) and the lead role in Moonlight. Earlier this year he starred in the thriller film Whiteout and next up is movie The Back-Up Plan with Jennifer Lopez.

“It’s been a long journey but I’ve maintained a positive outlook and it has paid off,” O’Loughlin says. “There was a point when I was living on my mate Sam Gould’s couch for over a year – so long that my back went out. I had my swag with me and I had to move on to the floor. At that point I’d run out of money. A Ducati motorcycle, the only thing I owned, had been stolen and the insurance money had run out and I couldn’t get arrested in this town [Los Angeles].”

“O’Loughlin says that one of the first things he considered when reading the Three Rivers scripts was the potential for community service and he has since become an ambassador for US organ donation organization Donate Life America. The actor has been a registered organ donor since his teens.

“They save so many lives every day,” he told a Seattle newspaper recently. “I’m only one person, but hopefully I’ll bring more awareness to more people working on the show who have had life experience with organ donation.

“One of our guest stars in our earlier episodes about a heart transplant took the role because she had not yet dealt with the fact that her father died as a result of a failed heart transplant.”

So how does O’Loughlin’s mother feel about her son following in her medical footsteps, even if it is only as an actor?

“Mum is thrilled because before now I’ve done a lot of stuff she doesn’t want to watch,” he laughs.