Xena & Hercules Articles Archive

Dean There, Done That

Dean O'Gorman's acting career got off to an early start. His first role, at the tender age of 12, was in a pilot for an Australian television show. "I was into plays and drama at school, and probably without realising it, that was the way I was headed," he says. "Then I got my first part in a television show, and I thought, 'I quite like this,' because I got time off school to play around!

"It didn't really become a viable career option until I left school, and I went straight from school to acting. My first professional stage appearance was in an open air production of Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale. That was my first experience of performing live to an audience outside school. I liked it. The majority of my experience has been with television and film. I'd say that I enjoy those more than theatre, but that's not to say I wouldn't also enjoy theatre if I did more of it."

Asked to recall how he came to star as young lolaus in Renaissance's Young Hercules series, O'Gorman responds with his trademark wit. "Whenever I'm asked, 'How did you get the role in Young Hercules,' the first reply that comes to mind is, 'I had to sleep with a lot of people'," Dean O'Gorman laughs.

"There was nothing out of the ordinary about the way I got the part in Young Herc," the actor explains, adopting a more serious tone. "I went to an audition, got a callback and then got the part."

O'Gorman was offered the chance to audition for the role of the young Iolaus after successfully portraying a character in an episode of Xena's first season. "I played Homer in the episode Athens City Academy of the Performing Bards," O'Gorman recalls, "and the director who was doing the Young Hercules pilot saw it and thought I might be good as lolaus."

O'Gorman remembers his first and only Xena guest appearance fondly, and one of his highlights of the hour was acting opposite Renee O'Connor. "It was the first time I'd met Renee, and I think she is a really lovely person," he admits. "We got along very well, and the story centered a lot on the relationship between our two characters. While some actors find there's a spark between their characters, others really have to work at it. But we got on really well. And it was a good story It had a bit of heart to it. So we had fun, and Renee's cool!"

However, O'Gorman's experiences with Renaissance Pictures go back even further than Xena's first season. "I appeared in the season one Hercules episode The Gauntlet," he reveals of the episode which also guest-starred Lucy Lawless as Xena. "I played lloran. That was six years ago now, but it was good working at the start of it all.

"I played Hercules' cousin," O'Gorman expands, who obviously got the short gene in the family! My agent put me up for the part and I just auditioned for it. But it was weird because I was a lot shorter than Hercules and much weaker. Maybe it was the blonde hair that made the producer pick me. I don't know.

"The role was that of the serious young man, and that was the one episode that Michael [Hurst] wasn't in," O'Gorman continues. "So I really played Hercules' sidekick. That was kind of funny because it sort of foreshadowed what was going to happen later in Young Hercules."

Of course, turning to Hercules' sidekick him­self, how much did O'Gorman draw on Michael Hurst's characterisation of the older Iolaus in developing his own version of the character? "T.J. Scott, who directed the pilot, and the other Young Hercules directors, had already worked with Michael a lot," O'Gorman recalls, "so they would say, 'well, Michael tends to play it this way, so I think it would be help­ful if you did this...'

"It's not that I was trying to imitate Michael in any way, O'Gorman points out. "He has a unique style, and it would be like being someone I'm not. It's also disrespectful to copy someone or take aspects of them. The directors acknowledged that, and they'd just tweak a performance by saying, 'Iolaus reacts in this kind of way and maybe you should pay tribute to that,' because maybe I would want to play a scene in a more humorous way than was intended. Sometimes the directors would know the character better than I did, because they had previously worked with Michael.

"When I started developing young lolaus, there weren't many Hercules episodes to refer to," O'Gorman remembers, "and Michael's character had changed a lot from the early TV movies. In the early days, the character was much more restrained."

O'Gorman has a great deal of respect for Michael Hurst's abilities both in front of and behind the camera, although he break a part of our bodies, we'd let the stuntman do it! But the stunt department was really great, and they liked to involve the actors wherever they could, particularly in the fights.

"I got my nose broken on one occasion," he remembers. "We were in a stunt fight during which I was supposed to get a bucket kicked out of my hand, but I had the bucket too close to my head so it was knocked onto my nose! I didn't realise it at the time, so I kept on going. When I sat down I felt fine, but my body suddenly decided to go into shock and everybody was really worried. I thought they were worrying about me, but it was just that they needed to get through the shooting schedule!

"I had to go to hospital and turned up there in my Iolaus costume with a broken nose and wearing leather trousers, and the nurses were like, 'What the hell?' The doctor looked at me as if to say, 'What were you doing?' because I was wearing the leather, the sword, the boots, the gauntlets and the jerkin. So while I was lying there in this hospital bed, the doctor was trying not to laugh! "I hurt myself all the time, but it's not anyone's fault," O'Gorman muses. 'Ifs not that I'm particularly' uncoordinated, it's just that when I get tired I fall over! I hit things and trip over them!"

One of O'Gorman's regular co-stars on Young Hercules was fellow Kiwi actor Kevin Smith, who played (amongst other characters) the gods Ares and Bacchus. "I'd never work with him again," he jokes. "Actually, Kev, Ryan and me all had a great time on Young Hercules and got along really well. We'd laugh all the time and keep making jokes. In the episode Con Ares, Kevin had to play a peasant farmer who looked like Ares, but who turned out to be just downbeat and stupid. We had a great time in that episode; it was hilarious and really good fun.

"Kevin was just like us and wanted to put as many jokes into the show as possible. Young Hercules is a lot less serious than Xena and Hercules, and I think he enjoyed it as much as we did."

Another regular on Young Hercules was Meighan Desmond, who reprised her role as the goddess Discord. "I'd worked with Meighan before on the New Zealand soap Shortland Street," O'Gorman reveals. "It was a great cast and everyone liked the show and was committed to it."

So does O'Gorman have a preference for a particular type of Hercules, Xena or Young Hercules episode? "I like both the comedies and the dramas," he says. "It's good to have a bit of drama and tension in some shows. We did an episode of Hercules called Twilight where there were big battles and explosions. We were working in mud, and the director wanted us to look really dirty so we were running around every­where and there was mud and blood. That was cool!"

Are there any other roles O'Gorman would like to have played for Renaissance Pictures? "I would have liked to play Julius Caesar," he says after a pause. "I love the roles where you get to be the leader of an army and you get to take your troops into battle. All that stuff is great, and that's why I love these shows. I love the fighting and the battle sequences and all the action. The majority of acting jobs are nothing like that. Being drama orientated, I like those as well," he quickly clarifies, "but for these shows you can get out and get dirty and run around."

So what direction would O'Gorman like his career to take in the future? "I'd ultimately like to do some directing," he admits, 'but for the present, act­ing is where I'm headed. Before I do any directing, I know I need a lot more experience.

"The great thing about Young Hercules is I really got to see that filmmaking is dependent on so many different things. In the end, the directors were very open to suggestions, and I was allowed to direct a scene on the show. So the thought of directing has become less daunting now

"I used to think, 'No way could I tell a crew what to do', but now directing would be creatively satisfying. So I would like to write, produce and create my own project."

Related Pictures

• Dean Photo #1
• Dean Photo #2
• Dean Photo #3