Kip In Casualty

[Frankie]

Kip's gamble pays off.

WIL MARLOW

The Scotsman 9/6/06.

Last year Kip Gamblin lived up to his surname and uprooted his whole family to the UK.

The Australian actor had not long finished a three-year stint on one of his homeland's most popular soaps Home And Away, when he and his wife Linda decided to start afresh in London.

"We'd talked about it a lot," says the 30-year-old. "Linda was in the Royal Ballet Company over here, so had lived in London for a while and she'd always wanted to bring me here.

"When we were both dancers working in Sydney she was always saying that after working in Europe and London, Australia always felt like a small country town - you get that cultural cringe.

"So when I finished on Home And Away, straight away we thought, let's take a gamble and do it. And it was a gamble. A lot of people thought we were mad as we had no work to go to. But we believed in ourselves."

Gamblin's belief paid off. Six months after arriving in the UK he has landed a job on one of the most popular and enduring dramas on British TV - BBC One's Casualty.

Of course, he has had to uproot his family again, this time to Bristol where the show is filmed, but he says that he and his wife and their two young sons - Kelly, six, and two-year-old Marlon - are adjusting well to life in the UK.

"My sons are coping really well. Not once has Kelly complained about the weather or said he wants to go home, which is a real surprise for me, but I guess when they're that age coming to a different country is pretty exciting.

"And those first few months hanging out in London were pretty good. We did a lot of touristy stuff, so it's really exciting for him. And also when he goes to school, some of the kids find it interesting that he's from the other side of the world. They all want to know the Australian kid."

Gamblin's latest role - as Greg Fallon, a new paramedic with, inevitably, "a few skeletons in his closet" - is a peak for the actor in what has been a rollercoaster career in showbiz.

Coming from a family of professional dancers, he followed that inevitable career path, enlisting at the Australian Ballet School. A broken leg in his second year there failed to deter him and he graduated, getting a place in the Australian Ballet Company.

Major tours, both of Australia and around the world, followed, as did one of his first acting jobs, a role in 1999 dance film Kick. But in 2000 he landed what is obviously, from the way he talks, a job that became his proudest moment.

As the dancer opening Barbra Streisand's 2000 Timeless tour during its Australian leg, Gamblin had to do a solo performance before 30,000 fans each night before bringing the lady herself on stage with a neat illusion.

"I had this jacket with all these mirrors on the inside which I had to wrap around this kid who was playing Barbra as a child," recalls Kip. "She ran behind me and then Barbra came up through this trap door into my jacket.

"I then had to open my jacket and all the spotlights would hit my mirrors and thousands of people who've just paid 250 bucks to come and see her, die-hard Streisand fans, would be screaming their heads off.

"I came off stage and I literally could have jumped 10ft in the air. It was wild. I'll never forget it for the rest of my life."

Working so closely with Streisand, Gamblin feels he got to know her a little better than most.

"Kelly was born when we were doing the show, so I was lucky that there was an interest there," says Kip. "Linda brought him in and Barbra made an effort to come over and meet us all, and we had a photo with the baby.

"But apart from that she's quite untouchable. I remember warming up backstage and I'd see her go past and she'd have a woman holding her dress, another fixing her hair, two bodyguards in front, two behind. And there was me, this young Aussie bloke throwing his legs around. It was surreal.

"She was somebody that, when she comes Down Under they have to rip the toilets out of the stadiums and re-carpet the dressing room, and she brought her own curtains. We're not used to seeing that sort of power."

It wasn't to be Kip's first taste of working with a diva either. Later that year he joined Kylie Minogue on stage for the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

"Kylie wasn't anything like Barbra," he says. "In fact, she was really down to earth. She'd come into rehearsals in her jeans and we would all stare at her arse but she was just so cool.

"She's such a gay icon and I'd say about 75 per cent of the dancers were gay. The other 25 per cent, we were all standing there going: 'Oh, she's gorgeous', and all the other guys absolutely adored her, but I think in a different way.

"She was lovely. Especially compared to Nicole Kidman."

Gamblin was briefly in the proximity of rather than worked with Kidman as one of the dancers on the 2001 film Moulin Rouge.

"At that point Nicole was still married to Tom Cruise," he continues, "and we were all advised not to speak to her or make eye contact. To me, working on something like that, we're all in it together. But on Moulin Rouge we were the fodder.

"But you never get that feeling with Kylie. She's of the belief that you're all creating something and you're all of equal importance. Not to take anything away from Nicole, she's a great performer and an amazing Australian.

"I think maybe LA affects people. Once you work in America and establish yourself like that, I think you're probably a bit more demanding. But that's Americans. I'm not going to say any more otherwise I'll get in trouble," he laughs.

Gamblin's infectious enthusiasm is also apparent when he talks about his new job on Casualty, despite the lack of A-list colleagues, or the sun, sea and surf he enjoyed as a resident of Summer Bay.

There's certainly no sign that he misses Home And Away.

"Casualty is completely different," he says. "Home And Away was a much more rushed affair. Doing five episodes a week, there wasn't much room for details, if you know what I mean.

"I feel like in Casualty there's a lot more creativity coming from the writers and directors. You've got a lot more room to make something a bit more gritty and artistic.

[Amir]

Wow...

[~Lynd~]

Thanks for that...name dropping,and bagging h&a...again!

[Sunny Girl]

Interesting ... It seems like things are going well for him, anyway.

[Libertin]

I really like how he's honest about what he says. Well, seems like it anyway. That thing about Streisand... haha! He has had a lot of experiences that's for sure. I hope it keeps going well for him.

[Jay Preston]

Hopefully he'll put his foot even further into his mouth one day and get into trouble.

I'm sure he'll start whinging about Casualty soon enough.

He seems to fancy himself as quite the artiste. So obviously his terrible performances on Home and Away were because it was so rushed there wasn't time for details. Yet people like Lynne McGranger, Laurie Foell and Kate Ritchie seem to pull off fine performances despite the rushing. Gosh, I guess that's what they call acting.

I love how he talks about Nicole Kidman. "Yes, she (one of the biggest celebrities in the world) thought she was on a higher level than the extras. How unAustralian of her. It must be because of Tom Cruise. I would know all about it, seeing as how I walked past her once."

When I don't see Kip Gamblin at the back of a chorus line I'll be happy.

[~Lynd~]

Hopefully he'll put his foot even further into his mouth one day and get into trouble.

I'm sure he'll start whinging about Casualty soon enough.

He seems to fancy himself as quite the artiste. So obviously his terrible performances on Home and Away were because it was so rushed there wasn't time for details. Yet people like Lynne McGranger, Laurie Foell and Kate Ritchie seem to pull off fine performances despite the rushing. Gosh, I guess that's what they call acting.

I love how he talks about Nicole Kidman. "Yes, she (one of the biggest celebrities in the world) thought she was on a higher level than the extras. How unAustralian of her. It must be because of Tom Cruise. I would know all about it, seeing as how I walked past her once."

When I don't see Kip Gamblin at the back of a chorus line I'll be happy.

LOL!That's hysterical Jay,and i couldn't agree more.He's so up himself and continuously bags the show that's made him who he is today.

[Cat123]

i think he seems like a genuine lovely guy who speaks his mind, and just got frustrated with the show.

[Frankie]

Hopefully he'll put his foot even further into his mouth one day and get into trouble.

I'm sure he'll start whinging about Casualty soon enough.

He seems to fancy himself as quite the artiste. So obviously his terrible performances on Home and Away were because it was so rushed there wasn't time for details. Yet people like Lynne McGranger, Laurie Foell and Kate Ritchie seem to pull off fine performances despite the rushing. Gosh, I guess that's what they call acting.

I love how he talks about Nicole Kidman. "Yes, she (one of the biggest celebrities in the world) thought she was on a higher level than the extras. How unAustralian of her. It must be because of Tom Cruise. I would know all about it, seeing as how I walked past her once."

When I don't see Kip Gamblin at the back of a chorus line I'll be happy.

LOL!That's hysterical Jay,and i couldn't agree more.He's so up himself and continuously bags the show that's made him who he is today.

He does seem to have a bit of a chip on his shoudler about big name celebs...sometimes the way these things are edited and presented skews them a certain way...but every KIP intervew I have ever read... he does seem to be slagging off Home and Away....sometimes it seems refershing...at others it seems ungrateful....maybe its a bit of both.....

[ste]

It is refreshing to hear a "star" who doesn't just give the default bla bla bla answers and speaks his mind. But there's no denying he's a bit of a prat.