I was hungry and broke’ says Kiwi star

Daniel Gillies

Steven Spielberg asked for him by name, he's married to actress Rachael Leigh Cook and is living like a star in LA, but hunky Kiwi actor Daniel Gillies admits he left New Zealand because of a drinking problem.

Gillies starred in Spider-Man 2 and has the lead in the US thriller Trespassing but he walked away from the successful New Zealand television series Street Legal after only two seasons, despite being signed for the third.

"I was walking into Street Legal, standing on my mark, not bumping into the furniture and I wasn't being challenged and I was drinking heavily. At that time I was unhappy and I had everything in New Zealand that you could, but I didn't want to be 35 and be, 'oh man, I could have been a contender'. So I got up and left."

Gillies, 29, headed first for his birth country Canada, where he worked as a waiter for eight months before moving to Los Angeles. For two years he struggled to secure roles.

"I had some really hard times, I was hungry and broke and now I have a great life," he says.

Part of that great life is his wife, Josie and the Pussycats star Rachael Leigh Cook. The pair married in August last year, in a low-key ceremony in Napa Valley. They have a home in West Hollywood, off Sunset Strip.

As Rachael has never been to New Zealand the couple is planning to visit home in October.

He's excited to show her his parents' new B&B business, in Tauranga, and "just drive around the back roads of New Zealand, that's if I can remember how to drive on the left-hand side of the road".