Starting an acting career in LA in his 50s proved a fruitful move for Alan Dale, writes Jacqueline Smith.
Alan Dale is wearing his comfiest slippers. The pair he salvaged from the throw-out pile and sent to his Waiwera holiday home. Yep, he feels totally at home, he says, as he sips a steaming cup of coffee and watches the ducks cross his front lawn - he'll feed them when we have finished talking.
It's drizzling outside - no surprises there. Dale is one of the few Kiwis to appreciate the wet winter, he leaps up from his chair to watch as the low cloud steams off the hills. He doesn't get lovely cloud formations in Los Angeles.
These days Dale is so flat-out with screen work in other parts of the world that he barely has the time to kick back with the ducks back home in New Zealand. That's why when TimeOut caught up with him last week, he was here not only to be inducted into the businesss hall of fame at his old school, Onehunga High, but also, sadly, to get things underway to sell his slice of Waiwera serenity.
Dale's getting very busy in his older years.
He moved to Los Angeles as a last resort after playing Jim Robinson on Aussie soap Neighbours for eight years - 572 episodes. When you are in people's living rooms for that long, it's difficult for people to imagine you playing anyone else. Seventeen years and a good 50 roles later, his fans Downunder still refer to him as "Jim".
Most aspiring actors hit the Los Angeles circuit sometime around puberty. Dale was nearly 50 when he decided to give it a try and he thinks he was just the right age - unlike the child stars, he'd been through enough to know who he was.
In LA he found he was no longer typecast as an ageing Australian dad, but was landing roles of the powerful, revered, old guy - the vice-president, the ambassador, the business mogul - often played by the likes of Anthony Hopkins. These days he's known as the guy who stars on almost every big TV show; E.R, The X Files, The West Wing, CSI Miami, 24, The OC, Ugly Betty, Lost, Entourage and even Flight of the Conchords (as an Australian).
For some reason, his character is often the one that dies, usually after a heart attack. No, he doesn't enjoy those scenes - and he especially doesn't enjoy reading through a script and finding that his character is going to be killed off.
"Some people say when one door closes, another one opens, but my experience has always been when one door closes, all the others slam shut in your face," he says.
"When one shuts you start to get panicky and Ugly Betty did that to me. But then the next thing you know, I'm doing Monty Python's Spamalot and having the best time of my life."
It was such a blast that even now he can't help reciting lines in a British musical theatre voice...
Right, where were we? This year and next we will see Dale perform in film Priest, alongside Karl Urban and Steven Moyer and stars with Kathy Bates, Whoopi Goldberg and Kate Hudson in Earthbound - in fact he plays Hudson's character's doctor and is tasked with massaging her stomach.
He's also in thriller Don't Be Afraid of the Dark alongside Guy Pearce and Katy Holmes, and has just finished shooting for the next season of Californication.
When he left New Zealand in 1989 there was one television show he could have worked on. Now there are dozens, and there are plenty of films too - he would love to come back.
"I only left because I had to work. If I was as successful and clever as say, Sam Neill, I would be able to stay here and take phone calls," he says, then casually mentions he has been called about another LA film role since being here.
"That's Hollywood for you. Everyone would have thought it was over when I moved there in my 50s and it wasn't. It still isn't," he says.
LOWDOWN
Who: Alan Dale
What: Best known for Neighbours, but has since been on Lost, Entourage, Ugly Betty, The OC, The West Wing and 24, to name a few.
Latest: Films Priest, Happy New Year, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark and Earthbound.
- TimeOut
