Dom in Player Magazine

Dominic Purcell was faced with a tough decision: keep the lawnmower and his Australian accent, or become a star in America. What do you think he chose?

Well, it wasn't that easy, and the choice wasn't really like that, however, one thing is for sure: The intense Australian-raised heartthrob came a long way from landscaping, surfing, and being a live-by-the-day beer-drinking tough guy in the land down under to make it onto TV screens across the world. I sat down with the charismatic Purcell to see what he's all about, to get inside the mind of a man who's overcome seemingly impossible odds to get where he is today, as co-star in the very hot action-packed series, Prison Break.

I arrive early for the interview and quickly become absorbed in some preparatory research on my laptop while I wait for Purcell to arrive. There is Internet access so I log on and read a bit more about the Prison Break star.

Dominic Purcell was born in England in 1970 to a Norwegian father and Irish mother, and at the age of two, the family moved to Australia. He grew up like any other kid, and as a youngster, did what other teenagers did in his Sydney neighborhood: surf, hang out, fight and drink beer till you can’t stand up straight anymore.

But somewhere along the way, something happened to him that was so subtle and so foreign to his world, that even Purcell doesn’t know its origins. He decided that he wanted to be an actor.

After going to acting school at the prestigious Australian Theatre for Young People and then the Western Australian Academy of Performing, Purcell began getting parts. His first big break occurred when he was cast as Ulrich in Mission Impossible 2, starring Tom Cruise, which was being shot in Australia. It was his first taste of a major film. Better yet, this role, small as it was, got him noticed in Hollywood. This led to more roles, most significantly as the lead in the acclaimed but short-lived 2002 TV series, John Doe. His performance in John Doe put Purcell on the map to stay. It also helped him land a substantial part as Drake in the movie Blade Trinity (2004), starring Wesley Snipes.

Purcell was getting good exposure, and his Blade role led to an opportunity for him in Prison Break as Lincoln Burrows, a death-row inmate. Lucky for him and viewers everywhere, the vehicle became a hit and Purcell was thrust into the spotlight. After all those years and hard work, the verdict was clear: Purcell had made it.

I feel a presence and look up. A man wearing jeans and a well-worn matching jacket with a dark green tank top underneath is looking in my direction. He’s about six-foot-one, with a shaved head, very good-looking. Sure enough, it’s him. Dominic Purcell is in the house.

We sit down and start talking. It’s funny, I’ve read about his linguistic struggles between Australian English and American English-you didn’t know those were languages, did you?-and how he finally decided that professionally, it would be wiser to take up Americanized speech. So I was surprised that he began our interview speaking Australian. Then even more surprisingly, as he became more comfortable
talking about himself, he subtly, like a great actor, shifted into perfect American dialect-without a trace of his Australian accent.

Except for his star quality-and there is lots of that-there is nothing “Hollywood” about Dominic Purcell. His personality is down-under real and refreshing, and his way of looking at life is matter of fact and
practical. His answers are candid and open-there is nothing slick about them or bottled-at-the-factory fake. In fact, he’s a great guy.

Purcell’s first acting experience was very nearly his last. He had decided to give acting a shot, and in his very first class, he settled into a seat across the room and toward the back. As the class progressed, he saw he was way out of his element-among intellectuals, actors, and creative types-in a world he hadn’t mixed in before. This was nothing like his beer-drinking buddies on the beach; he was in the wrong crowd.

He wanted to leave. Immediately. The problem: he had chosen a strategically poor location on the far side of the class, one that would require him to march across the roomful of students to exit. He couldn’t slink out the door and leave the play-acting, feminine histrionics behind him. He was stuck.

His set location was one of those seemingly insignificant quirks, but it was one that changed everything in Dominic Purcell’s life. Because it forced him to stay in an acting class that he hated with a passion, didn’t understand, and couldn’t wait to escape from. Minute after minute passed as he squirmed in his seat, furtively glancing at the exit, wishing himself the hell out of that room.

He was looking for a break-the class to finish, maybe a quick recess-so he could bolt out of the stultifying room for fresh air and put an end to this very bad experience.Trapped, he watched as the drama teacher got a female to volunteer for an improvisation scene and now needed a guy for the other role. No one came forward. So she spots this uncomfortable-looking kid and tells him to come forward and give it a go.

To Dominic’s horror, it’s him. He demurs, the teacher persists, and he ends up in front of the class, about to formally act for the first time in his life.

Purcell doesn’t know if his legs are shaking, but it sure feels like it. Everyone in the classroom is watching him. He didn’t have an idea of quite what to expect before he walked into this room, but being on a
pedestal like this, scared out of his mind, was definitely not it.

He’s unsure, tentative, and doesn’t have a clue about what he’s supposed to say or do. And it gets worse. The girl starts screaming at him. He doesn’t how to react, so he just stands there mutely, watching her charade, and unable to utter a word. Dominic is as uncomfortable and nervous as he’s ever been.

Interminable minutes later, the scene is over. The teacher applauds the performance and turns to the class. She says to them, “Now, that’s acting.”

The girl beams with delight at the praise. Dominic is held captive at the front of the class, next to the girl, and shrinks further into his self, not that there’s much room left there. He glances at his chair, hoping to slip back into its anonymity. Even better, he wants to be out of the room, into the open space and fresh air of the Australian day, drinking beer back with the buddies on the beach.

It is very clear to him: this acting idea was a big mistake.

The teacher continues to talk, greatly impressed by the performance she just witnessed. You know who that girl was?

Purcell’s route to stardom was as unlikely as could be. He had no connections to the acting scene in Australia, let alone Hollywood, and he started on this path as an adult. He had never acted in his life or even seriously considered it. He didn’t know any actors, never frequented plays, and knew nothing about the craft or its realities. Nothing in his life suggested this direction: not his landscaping work, which kept him in beer and paid the rent; not his childhood; and certainly not his group of very macho friends. The idea of acting to them, as it was to Purcell before his immersion in it, would be just as laughable and acceptable as him taking ballet lessons.
But somehow, out of the Australian blue, an inexplicable urge to become an actor had crept into his mind. His chances of succeeding in this profession were as remote as the outback.
But through the oddest of circumstances and happenstances, and in the unlikeliest of scenarios, a seed took hold and actually prospered.

Back to the drama scene: The girl up front was beaming with delight at her tour de force interpretation of the screaming scene. Physically, Dominic was next to her, but mentally, he was outside the building, sprinting away from that classroom as fast as he could. The drama teacher had said to the class,
“Now, that’s acting.”
So, who was the girl? Dominic doesn’t remember. The teacher wasn’t talking about the girl; she was talking about him.

A star was born.

PLAYER: How did you get the idea to be a serious actor? That’s a big leap from landscaping.
PURCELL: Yeah, you know, I had a great time with landscaping. It was 800 bucks a week for a 19-year-old kid, a lot of money. But it was the idea of being able to buy a house on the water if I got into movies. I mean, that’s as raw as I can put it. It was never a case of exorcising demons or wanting to be some kind of Lawrence Olivier. When I left school I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life. Acting wasn’t even in my consciousness. I grew up in a very masculine place. Australia is a very rough-and-tumble kind of old west culture. If you can’t surf and you don’t drink enough beer and you can’t fight, you’re not a man. You grow up with it. So the arts were certainly something that the crew that I hung out with didn’t understand.

PLAYER: You saw acting as an opportunity to get out.
PURCELL: Yeah I saw the schmucks on TV back in Australia and I was like ‘I could do that.’ And these guys are making good money. At the time, I didn’t know the realities. I was naïve. I didn’t realize that it was the one percent that actually worked and make a living doing it. I had no clue about that.

PLAYER: So how did you get started?
PURCELL: I more or less just got home and looked in the paper. I went to this acting audition thing. And it was terrifying. I was surrounded by poets, intellects, and bohemians and kids in a culture that I had never ever been anywhere near before.

PLAYER: How were you even able to sit through that class?
PURCELL: Dude, I was like, I can’t take this. The unfortunate thing or the fortunate thing is that in order for me to leave, I had to walk across the whole room. I was kind of stuck in the back. I remember saying to myself, if this is what acting is I can’t do it. I can’t pretend to be a dog and bark around the room or get into some bizarre argument or some improvisational whatever with some loopy art chick. The drama teacher, Rose Clemente, volunteers me for this next exercise. I said ‘no’ and she said ‘please come up.’ So I get up. I was in the middle of this kind of room and this young actress was ranting and raving and screaming, doing some kind of improv. I was terrified, I was frozen. She was screaming at me and I was supposed to react and I was just like a wood duck, like a rabbit in the headlights. And at the end of it, the teacher goes, “Did you see what he did? That was acting, he was reacting, he was listening.” Truth of the matter was, I wasn’t doing any one of those things. I just wanted to get out of there.

PLAYER: Was it those words that gave you the idea that you could do it?
PURCELL: No. I wasn’t listening to anything. It was a blur. God knows what she saw in me. I was just standing there embarrassed. But she kind of looked after me and she took me to the Australian Theatre for Young People and away I went.

PLAYER: So it was by chance that your teacher showed you the way, or otherwise that would have been it.
PURCELL: Absolutely. It was shocking. And I kept it very, very quiet too. ‘Cause I was going to acting classes at night and in the day I was, you know, landscaping, gardening and surfing with all my mates.

PLAYER: You couldn’t tell them?
PURCELL: Oh, no way. No way, mate. Then I got accepted to one of the most prestigious drama schools in Australia. It was the same kind of situation, man. I kind of walked up and got this gig. The first year was awful. I was surrounded by intellects, and all these people I thought were greater and somehow more intelligent than I was, more worldly, which they were. Back then I was an angry young man who had a certain view of the world.

PLAYER: But you stuck it out. You must have wanted it bad enough.
PURCELL: Exactly, I stuck it out. My greatest asset in life is that I’ve never been afraid of anything. Whenever I’m in a situation where I feel like I can’t do it, or I don’t want to do it, I deliberately stick it out. It’s a masochistic streak in me. I don’t know what it is, pride, arrogance, dumb whatever, you name it. But eventually I got through that whole experience.

PLAYER: It had to be the dream to get over to Hollywood.
PURCELL: Very much so. I was different than my peers in drama school. They were into doing great scenes, theatre, great little independent films. My whole thing was I wanted to make a living out of it. At the time, being an actor in Australia was precarious. Russell Crowe had taken all the great male roles. I kept getting cast by American agents for these ****ty Movies of the Week. It was discouraging.

PLAYER: What was your first big Hollywood break?
PURCELL: I got cast in Mission Impossible 2. That was very exciting for me, auditioning for John Woo, Tom Cruise. That was big time. I turn up for MI2 and I was excited and pumped. I auditioned to be one of the bad guys, with a pretty decent role, and the role was a lot less than I thought it was. I got very despondent. It became an exercise in endurance and patience. But I learned from that experience. I then got cast in the Matrix straight away and I said ‘no thanks.’ I’m not going to play a patsy to Keanu or Moss or Laurence Fishburne.

PLAYER: It’s a big thing to turn down.
PURCELL: I just felt it would be the same thing again. I wasn’t prepared to sit in my trailer for two years this time. I’d been through that. Forget about it. Then I won a green card in the lottery and it enabled me to stay in America as long as I wanted.

PLAYER: After you moved here, was it easier to get roles?
PURCELL: For the first six months, I worked my ass off and it was very discouraging. It’s a very hard process. I was living off my savings that I made back in Oz. At the time we had one child, and it was tough, man.

PLAYER: You must have thought about changing professions.
PURCELL: Never. That never entered my mind. I always had a solid belief in my ability as an actor. I never questioned it. I knew that eventually something was going to drop, and it was just a matter of finding a way to hang in there and not be too beat up and jaded toward the whole experience. Then I was starting to be considered for the lead role in Equilibrium. It was a big deal. A Miramax film. And about five months into it, they say no way: Who the hell is Dominic Purcell? It went the way of the dodo. But that’s just part of the business. A few months later, the writer rang me up and wrote a tiny role for me in there. That kind of got me going.

PLAYER: And what next?
PURCELL: Then I got cast in John Doe, then another pilot. And from a struggling guy, to all of a sudden being fought over by these big networks, it was like, whoa, this is surreal. Like, yesterday being told I suck and today everyone fighting over me. It was bizarre.

PLAYER: Did you enjoy working on John Doe?
PURCELL: I did, yes. I had a great time. It introduced me to the American audience. It was hard work. I was playing the smartest man in the world and I was proud of myself that I was able to do a demanding role. I was in every scene. I thrived on the challenge, the exhaustion. It was a very gratifying experience.

PLAYER: What were you first thoughts when you heard about Prison Break?
PURCELL: Fox was totally supportive of me and they were having trouble finding Lincoln Burrows in Prison Break. I read for them, and I got the part. I knew it was by far the most interesting and engaging thing I had read in a long time. The pilot read like a major, major film. And I just wanted to be part of it.

PLAYER: The English denigrate the Australians as a bunch of ex-prisoners. How can you defend against that now you play a convict in Prison Break.
PURCELL: Oh, man, you know, the joke is on them. They sent us to the most beautiful country in the world. And we’re reaping the benefits. They’re still being rained on, dumped on, and living on overpopulated land.

PLAYER: Do you have big goals after Prison Break?
PURCELL: I can lie to you and say that I‘m happy if I never go farther, but I’m not going to do that. The fact of the matter is that I want to do what Russell Crowe is doing. I want to work with Ridley Scott and I want to work with these great directors. Do I believe I’m good enough to do it? Of course I do. Will that opportunity come to me? Who knows? What I do know is that if I continue to do what I’ve been doing, I’m going to be alright. Prison Break is not only successful here, it’s a monster overseas. It’s in the top five of every market in the world.

PLAYER: What else are you working on now?
PURCELL: I’ve just done a movie with Disney in Africa, Gustave, playing this cocksure reporter in New York sent to find this crocodile that eats people.

PLAYER: It doesn’t sound like the Academy Award–winning type movie that every actor hopes to get.
PURCELL: Of course not, but it’s a chance to work with Disney, to align myself with studio executives there, to do a good job for them, to show them that I’m someone they can depend on. It’s a business. And that’s what I understand about this game. It is about relationships, and it’s about impressing the right people, and it is about doing a great job. And that’s one of the reasons why I did it. And being offered a lead role in a big movie from a big studio? That’s never happened to me before.

PLAYER: This is a pretty good opportunity.
PURCELL: Yeah, this is a big movie. A lot of my business acumen came into this as well, because at the end of the day, I’m a businessman as well as an actor. I’m a dad. I have to think differently than the 21-year-old guy in Hollywood, who’s all about integrity and credibility and eating out of a cereal box until Steven Spielberg knocks on the door and says, “Come on, son, I’ll take you on a ride.” You know, I don’t think like that. I’m way past that. I’m a realist. I just go in there and work my ass off.

PLAYER: Any other Hollywood goals beyond acting?
PURCELL: I want to produce and be able to pick a project and pick this actor or that one. I’m working now with a partner and we’re producing a TV drama that we’ll be pitching next year.

PLAYER: Emotionally, you went through a difficult time the last couple of years. What was going on with you?
PURCELL: For me, it had a lot to do with my old man. He was an alcoholic. He had cirrhosis and passed on to the next place. He left when I was seven years old and I hadn’t seen him ever since. I’ve been an angry guy and I put a lot of it down to not being around my dad, not having a masculine presence in my life. I’m 36 now and by the time I was 33, I was getting out of control. I’ve gone hard my whole life, everything I do. I don’t know how to do anything half-measure.

PLAYER: What made you stop?
PURCELL: I kind of realized that my kids and my wife are the only things in this world that I love, that I would die for. And why am I not treating them with the respect and honor and the love that they deserve? I felt that no one was holding a gun to my head telling me I must live a miserable life. Once I made that decision, life got infinitely better. I realized I don’t need to drink, something I’d been doing since I was fifteen. I feel like I’m on top of the world now, like I’m in control.

PLAYER: You played Dracula in Blade Trinity and a con now in Prison Break. Are you starting to get worried about being typecast?
PURCELL: I’m not naïve enough to pass on jobs that require me to play that role. I will take all of them until I can reach a point where I can actually get a movie made. I can go to a studio, a Disney, and I can say, I chased your crocodile for you, I ate **** for four months in Africa, I froze my nuts off…You do a couple for them and maybe they do one for you. If I get typecast as the troubled, brooding tough guy, that’s fine, because I know that’s not all I can give. I can break out.

Source

great interview! Thanks for posting, Dom!

wow thats long! nice find domfan!! thanks!

Dom is in the recent issue of Player Magazine. Its a magazine dedicated to poker. The pictures are pretty good, I may pick up an issue and scan the photos, if not, its out there folks and he is on the cover so he's not hard to miss.

[exNeo]

oh thanks tattooedangel! hope you dont mind me posting this



The article from this mag can be found in this thread http://www.prisonbreakscene.com/showthread.php?t=2421

[exNeo]

Dom is voted "Sexiest Dad" in People magazine. He has a full page picture with his children...cant find it on people site to upoad yet...

[rose]

http://www.dominicpurcellonline.com/....php?album=288

The scans from Player are here .. you will have to register to view.. I will get the scans from People soon.
Rose

Merged; I posted this a couple of days ago with the text from the article.