Paul O'Brien "I wasn't proud of Home and Away"

[HAA Girl 08]

Poor form Paul. You don't kick in the face a show that gave you a start, especially without having achieved anything significant first.

And I thought he was a humble actor. What an ungrateful, pretentious fool. Don't get me wrong, actors don't have to be proud of every production they work on, but at least give H&A some credit. I can't wait to see his 'acting', if that's what you call it, in the Underbelly film. What a snob.

[Anastasia]

Well he seemed pretty proud when he won his Logie!

I can understand his frustration of filming quickly and not being able to spend a lot of time on scenes. However I hate people who bite the hand that feeds them! The comments weren’t necessary.

Don’t worry Paul. I don’t want you to come back, actually I was quite glad when you left.

[KirstyEkua]

If he wasn't proud of it then why the hell did he stay so long? If he felt that strongly about it he should have left years ago; instead he stayed for a significant length of time and Jack and Martha were milked for all their worth. Home and Away has some really good actors who i think do a great job with pretty much every storyline they're given. And of course there are some who are awful. But that's the same story with every soap and it's extremely arrogant of Paul to say what he did without him having actually done anything memorable since he left.

[homeandawayuk18]

Did he get the sack or did he choose to leave?

[Mistified]

This interview/article is so damaging. I'm quite sure at least 50% of it is an accurate reflection of what Paul thinks and said to the interviewer, and the remainder has most likely been twisted and taken out of context to get the best angle on a story. The combination of both has just left Paul looking like an idiot, and will have caused him untold damage in the relatively small Australian TV and film industry. He'll need some good spin doctors around him now to make up for this. Didn't Bobby Morely come out and slag off H&A too, after he'd left? Did it harm his career?

[Anaya]

Haha! This is the most hilarious thing I have ever read. The guy is slating his own work on h&a (which I don't blame him for since it was that cringeworthy), but he's excusing it with the lack of takes, poor production etc, rather then his lack of talent in acting. Which makes him look like even more of a moron, since there have been lots of actors before and after him that have managed to produce quality work on the exact same show, with the same type of production/lack of retakes that are on offer.

If he's not proud of his work/acting on h&a, then he's basically not proud of his own work/acting full stop. Since, correct me if I'm wrong, that is all the 'acting/work' he's ever done.

Yes, Paul O'Brien, even on a fast-paced, quick takes, 'lack of sub-text', 'spelling everything out to the audience' type of soap production, filled with a majority of model-turned-actors or inexperienced teenagers, you weren't able to stand out from the crowd. To me that says more about your supposed acting talent than it does about the show.

[stephyrose4]

Um, wow.. I'm kind of disappointed in you Paul. I wouldn't think of him to do something like this

[idris]

What a surprise. An actor who thinks themselves to be such an actor, a serious actor, that it propels them to a level of pretentiousness that is self delusional, while being funny. And dumb. And bad mannered.

What strikes me about his attitude is that he falls into the trap of believing that 'lighter' forms of acting aren't as difficult as seriously heavy drama (cop dramas for instance ?) Although they aren't exactly the same discipline, soap acting and comedy acting are often more demanding than 'serious' dramas. It has been widely recognized that top comedians are also some of the best actors, e.g. Paul Whitehouse, Ronnie Barker. They're playing only slightly distorted versions of us, not deranged/broken cops or mass murderers (who I presume most of us don't relate to ?) I find lots of the writing and acting in the ocean of cop and crime programmes to be one dimensional anyway.

That's not to excuse bad character continuity and writing in H&A, which does exist. But it is ironic that the most persistent criticism of the show in the past 2 years was the accusation that it was being turned into a cop show, at the expense of the lighter side. Now, just let me try to remember the name of one of those cops....

[charmed60]

But again if thats not what he feels or thinks then why shouldn't he be honest, depends which way you look at it.

The difference is he didn't criticise his own acting abilities; he didn't say "i wasn't proud of my character or the work I did," he said he wasn't proud of the show which includes the cast and crew and came across as if he was embarrassed to be associated to it. He shouldn't be honest when it ends up hurting and insulting the people who actually made his name known.

Plus as Anaya said; what's even more laughable is the way he's blaming his poor performance on the fact that you can only shoot some scenes once. Yes it's not ideal as an actor and some scenes you might feel like you didn't have the chance to put in your best work but on the other side of the coin; if you're a good actor you'll see it as a chance to practice your skills and learn to be able to perfect your act straight away rather than relying on retakes. There are plenty of actors through the history of the show that haven't been held back by one shot takes and still managed to put on believable, emotional, entertaining performances so maybe Paul should stop blaming the show and see it as a reflection of his own acting talents.

Yeah but it's also a widely held opinion throughout the industry which is why soapies have such a hard time finding work outside of that particular genre. It might not be the nicest thing to point out but I'm sure if you ask a given actor if they'd want to be a soapie their entire career, most of them would respond with a loud "hell no!". Now are soapies judged harshly within the industry? Yes they certainly are. Just look at when the stars from H&A do media appearances, the media always seems to make some kind of backhanded remark about how "over the top" the storylines are. It's rude and it's unnecessary but unfortunately it's also true. The majority of soapies are non-actors/actors who are just cutting their teeth in the industry/actors who can't get jobs outside of soaps because their acting chops aren't up to snuff.

I appreciate what you're saying but I still don't think Paul has the right to criticise every single actor who works on the show and claim that the job they're doing isn't 'proper acting.' Yes soaps have a reputation for 'bad acting' but there are also many fantastic actors who work or have worked on the show ie Jess Tovey, Todd Lasance, Amy Mathews, Lynne McGranger etc and I don't think they can be accused of not doing proper acting. Especially by someone like Paul.

[dnp52td]

Poor form Paul. You don't kick in the face a show that gave you a start, especially without having achieved anything significant first.

That's not true! he was on 'Meet My Folks'