Marcus Graham: ‘I did Home and Away for two and a half years and no-one noticed’

[Perry]

MARCUS Graham, who played Harvey Ryan in Channel Seven’s drama Home and Away, is back on TV screens.
He he is — along with Claudia Karvan, a newcomer in the new series of the Ian Collie-produced drama Jack Irish and he also stars in the highly-anticipated Foxtel mini-series Secret City.
“I did Home and Away for about two and a half years (to 2014) and the industry didn’t know I was doing it for about two years because no one watches it. It’s only a certain demographic that watch.
“It’s interesting because 25-30 years ago you would be judged very harshly if you were doing it, you’d never be able to do Home and Away and a show at Belvoir Street (Graham starred in Hedda Gabbler at Belvoir in 2014) — they wouldn’t have allowed it. Whereas now they seem to have come to terms with commercialism a bit more and so there doesn’t seem so many blocks in the way. 

“That kind of freedom I’m enjoying. I did feel the judgmental weight of doing soap operas in my 20s, the weight that comes from being some sort of heart throb but wanting to do theatre is massive, no one wants to let you be both those things. So getting older is good (laughs).

“I’m enjoying it more and I’m getting more out of it. And I’m not really ambitious (anymore) and that’s a relief to not be chasing a bunny around a track.

“I’ve known Guy (Pearce) for a long, long time and we’ve had different periods where we’ve hung out and stuff. He has had the most incredible career. The other day we did a scene (for Jack Irish), four a half minutes long, just sitting across the desk from each other talking, a really intense hard big scene and quite theatrical in a way. And we were both going: ‘This is the first time we’ve worked together, it only took 25 years’.

“I’m playing a preacher. He’s more in the model of Hillsong, an evangelical type — there’s a few shadows of Scientology also.

“I’m doing another show called Secret City (for Foxtel in March). I’m playing a journo. We were shooting in Canberra in Tony Abbott’s courtyard maybe 10 days before the coup. That was amazing just to be on the ground in that environment there you know with those dudes walking around. Did I find sympathy for journalists doing the role? Sure, everyone’s just doing their jobs. Journalists get a bad rap, you’ve got to blame someone.

“It was also fantastic to play (the villain in last year’s ABC drama Hiding) he was such a maniac. The writer said to me: ‘I’ve got to admit I just pulled all my favourite ideas about gangsters in there, there’s not really a person there. Your job is to just find a guy that’s real in there’. Writers would never normally tell you that, I was so thankful he was so blazingly honest about that. It was great to work on.”
Jack Irish, ABC, Thursday, 8.30pm, ABC

http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/marcus-graham-i-did-home-and-away-for-two-and-a-half-years-and-noone-noticed/news-story/2668c19192bf6e33893f0933d515de60

[Luke39]

No one watches it lol. I see what he's saying. But that cracked me up.

[dee123]

It didn't help that his character was always coming and going and not really that likeable, none of which i blame him for.

[jodlebirger]

Well, he was on the show for a long time, it was' until the end that he was coming and going. 

But the writers didn't do him or Roo any favour. They had a kind of idea that the adult characters was meant to be funny, and tried to make them quirky. It didn't work at all, and it also destroyed Roo in  the process. She can never be the same good character she was in late 2010 and early 2011 again. 

Marcus Graham is a really good actor and they should have focused more on him as a character, cut the quirky nonsense, and should have used them in more deep, emotional and dramatic well developed storylines. 

I have said it several times, but it feels like the producers try to decide which actor they want to be popular and who they don't want to be popular. But if the industry in Australia is that snobby as he describes, then it is a good thing that the character didn't became popular. He is a good actor and shouldn't be destroyed by home and away. 

 

22 hours ago, Luke39 said:

No one watches it lol. I see what he's saying. But that cracked me up.

I found that sentence a bit weird, I didn't understood what he meant at all.. Because seen from the outside; H&A still ranks in top 10 every night it is on air in Australia, and seriously is that bad??? 

Maybe there are other factors, television is more fragmented now than 28 years ago. People watch much different things, and television isn't that much watched anymore in general. So there will be less focus on each programme. And H&A is old, and produced several world stars, so it has probably a higher status in Australia that it used to? And being in a soap or show that has existed for so long is also kind of noble/great. If it wasn't popular it wouldn't have survived for that long. 

[Gazza]

I can see where he's coming from with no one noticed he wasn't really a memorable character he never really had any so call big story lines which was a shame seeing as he was married to Roo and his exit was pretty poorly done but as for no one watches it come on it's got a pretty serious fan base around the world.

[InfantryAlex]

I had to google who he was to remember who he was... I still don't fully know who he was.

But wow..