Alex's Photo Shoot with Aussie GQ Style Magazine Cover!!!

[PNWgal]

Whatever the outcome, I do think the interviewer was definitely getting under Alex's skin and that sort of irritates me. That kind of gets at the negativity that Maggatha was mentioning.

The exasperated "Look - how are you going to portray me" comment from Alex (not going to say Alex's word as I despise the word too.) The interviewer saying that Alex was defensive. Clearly something was going on in how they communicated with each other.

And while we view Alex as endearing and charming in whatever he does, I think the interviewer was more specific than he needed to be about exactly what Alex said. I'm not sure what someone who is new to Alex would think about him.

I disagree. Completely.

Alex shouldn't be treated with kid gloves just because he's an actor and is a bit famous - any interviewer/reporter worth his salt is going to dig as much as the interviewee will allow because the reporter wants to write a good story and sell copy. If Alex was set on edge, then I think Brendan did his job and did it very well. And - I'd also wager that Alex came out of that interview feeling a bit bruised and shaken, but probably respected the guy for being passionate enough about his job to really hammer away at him.

I kinda think it's a difference in style, between the way Aussies look at things and the way Americans look at things. And I'm also not discounting our adoration for Alex. WE love him, so we think EVERYONE should love him and treat him like he's something special.

I would hope that someone who is new to Alex sees this article exactly the way those of us who have followed his career for awhile would see him - as a lovely, complicated, multi-layered guy who's not perfect, but who we love anyway.

[allegrita]

I'm somewhere between these schools of thought. I personally don't like the kind of journalist who says nasty things in an attempt to get a rise out of an interviewee. There are better ways to get someone to talk, and Alex is definitely the kind of interviewee who will give honest, thought-out responses. However, the whole issue appears to be on a theme of edgy, angry, "bad-boy" stuff. So making your interview subject mad might have been on the agenda, to get the right "feel" for the article.

I keep reminding myself that Aussies have a different way of talking than Americans. Especially men, it seems. They're a bit rougher, freer with the profanity. Alex is more unguarded in his Aussie interviews. But, much as I respect the idea of journalistic integrity, I don't like nastiness in any form, and I think that guy pushed the boundaries. Did it lead to a good interview? Heck, yeah. But he would have gotten a good interview no matter what, I think. Because Alex doesn't give pat answers to any kind of question.

[wpgrace]

I would hope that someone who is new to Alex sees this article exactly the way those of us who have followed his career for awhile would see him - as a lovely, complicated, multi-layered guy who's not perfect, but who we love anyway.

WHAT?????!!!!!
What're you smokin' PSheen?

[jmc]

About Mr. Shanahan from Wikipedia: 'gained notoriety' during university days for 'his strongly satirical writing style' and 'was commissioned' to write a celebrity biography that was 'suppressed on legal grounds'. So maybe Alex was right to be a bit defensive.

I would have liked to have read the first part of their conversation which elicited the c word. I'm interested in the influences that have affected him. If he mentions a book he liked or the list of of favorite romantic films (during the TBUP interviews), I'm going to look at them to try to understand a bit of how he sees things, how he thinks. He has mad skills and is leagues ahead of me intellectually but sometimes you can get a bit of a glimpse. That's part of the fascination for me.

My second thought was about the girlfriends and the ADD-delayed answers. Sometimes when Alex is doing interviews, he repeats the question before answering and I wonder if that is a way to adjust for the ADD.

[PNWgal]

Grace...

I'm interested in the influences that have affected him. If he mentions a book he liked or the list of of favorite romantic films (during the TBUP interviews), I'm going to look at them to try to understand a bit of how he sees things, how he thinks.

jmc, I do the same thing. Because I'm a fan, I want to understand more WHY I'm a fan, and I want to be a fan of the whole man, not just the guy I see on TV. If I hear that he's a jerk to fans, or yells at the people that work around him, or has a rep for being all-around difficult...I'm just not going to want to be a fan.

[MoonMad]

Interesting POV's ladies. It's funny, and it may be the cultural thing again, but I didn't pick up on any nastiness from the interviewer at all. What boundaries were pushed do you think? I'm curious about that. In fact, he sounded like he was trying desperately to gain ground with Alex after inadvertently making a comment which Alex misundertood. But perhaps I was so focused on Alex all I could see was his insecurity about himself, while others can see a journalist who must have made him that way. Other journalists have asked these same questions, in one form or another, and perhaps all we got was the sanitised answer without the 'personality' that delivered the response. At least this interviewer actually gives us a taste of what Alex is like under the skin, and although it's filtered through a journalist's clinical eye, it is at least interesting, and far more revealing than most other interviews Alex has done previously. I can see most of us do agree on that.

What causes Alex to suddenly ask the question about how he's going to be perceived after this article comes out, reminds me very much of the fun that was made of him during the TCA's when he started talking about doing his character work and suchlike to 'find' McGarrett. If you remember, several journalists scoffed a bit and implied he was being a bit pretentious by talking like that when his show is nothing but fluff. Well, if anyone knows Aussies, they hate to be thought of as a 'wanker', and Alex waxing lyrical about a literary classic may have given him a sudden sense of insecurity about how this guy would write up what he was saying. It was also eye opening that he apparently got quite defensive when talking about having ADD and OCD. To me that speaks volumes about Alex rather than the interviewer.

And like I was saying upthread; there does not have to have been any anger or insult for Alex to have used such a word. It's not necessarily used with heat. After all, he was speaking about himself, he wasn't insulting the journalist. It's just a swear word, albeit the worst one you can say. Alex could just as easily have used 'wanker' to say what he was trying to say, but we've always known he has a predisposition to swear like a sailor, so he probably wasn't even aware of how harsh it sounded. And if anyone thinks less of him for using such a word, then that's the way they feel. But that's the real Alex, not the man who puts on his public face and smiles for the cameras even though he's sweating bullets inside. I don't like the word either, but I truly appreciated that glimpse into his real personality.

[lynnrxgal]

As an American woman, I think of the c*** word as a noun, slang for a body part in the female. I really didn't understand how Alex would feel that he was that!

Although I do not usually quote Wikipedia, it stated that:

[T]he Macquarie Dictionary of Australian English defines it as "a despicable man",

an adjective that is more gender specific for a man.

Totally, totally different meaning!

I thought that the author did his homework (how else would he know that Alex had a hard time tying his shoes with his OCD, unless Alex told him?) Alex seemed a bit unnerved at times in the article, as others have noted, which gave us all interesting insights into him.

Just my $0.02 worth.

[MoonMad]

Yes, it's quite true Lynn, it is used to describe a man, as well as a nasty woman too I might add. It's just an all round nasty word, but the insult is in the delivery and the intent rather than the word itself. I hope I'm making sense here. The journalist actually explained Alex's intent very well (see, he's an Aussie, so he gets it). It's low class and very vulgar, but it's not necessarily said in anger. If Alex were to say that to an American journalist they would probably just not include it in the article, but being Australian, this guy probably thought 'why not? I suppose it depends on the market for the magazine. This is a mens' magazine after all, not TV Guide.

[lynnrxgal]

Moonmad, you make perfect sense. I agree, this term would have never been published in an American magazine. That being said, I can see it in an Aussie one, especially one being cutting edge. I certainly am NOT offended, only educated, multiculturally.

[allegrita]

It's funny--whereas in someone I don't know anything about, I might have been offended... because it was Alex, and I know that he has a tendency to swear just a bit, and it was for an Australian magazine... I was totally fine with the use of the word. I took it in context. And anyway, I know that Alex has a huge heart and a good mind.

[wpgrace]

Well I had no idea... who knew? That was interesting, lynn... Thanks!
Tho I gotta confess I swear pretty liberally myself so his use of this and other words hardly gets a note from me...

[jmc]

What causes Alex to suddenly ask the question about how he's going to be perceived after this article comes out, reminds me very much of the fun that was made of him during the TCA'swhen he started talking about doing his character work and suchlike to 'find' McGarrett. If you remember, several journalists scoffed a bit and implied he was being a bit pretentious by talking like that when his show is nothing but fluff. Well, if anyone knows Aussies, they hate to be thought of as a 'wanker', and Alex waxing lyrical about a literary classic may have given him a sudden sense of insecurity about how this guy would write up what he was saying.

I didn't know that. It explains a lot of his attittude then. Poor guy can't catch a break sometimes. It gives more context to his comment about Hamlet being done every week and then catching himself and saying 'because what we're doing is so much like the Bard'.

[mwj01]

It gives more context to his comment about Hamlet being done every week and then catching himself and saying 'because what we're doing is so much like the Bard'.

Actually, Scott caught him on that one.

BTW, here are most of the shots in HQ from AOLR.

[MoonMad]

Actually jmc, I should probably clarify my remark a bit. I don't remember any journalist actually saying anything derogatory about Alex when he answered that question, but if I remember correctly there were tweets and a few blog comments etc., that came out at the time that said their were sniggers among the media present, and so my comment was really just based on my impression of what they made of Alex's remarks.

[r1015bill]

Not that I want all of you to melt again,

but a few of the unpublished shots are available along with the published ones here

http://www.gq.com.au/life/people/alex+oloughlin,11009