Michael Galvin from Shortland Street
Shortland Street returns to our screens this week with Michael Galvin’s Chris Warner facing a world of worries. Kerry Harvey reports.
The past year has been a real shot in the arm for Shortland Street veteran Michael Galvin. “There’s never been a bigger year for Chris Warner or me as an actor, that’s for sure,” says the actor, who is the drama’s longest-serving cast member.
“Nothing could top this year but the writers will come up with something. They always do.”
In 2017, Chris became the father to adult triplets – Sass (Lucy Lovegrove), Finn (Lukas Whiting) and Frank (Luke Patrick) – split from soul mate Rachel (Angela Bloomfield), and battled leukaemia.
He even made headlines internationally when an argument with teen son Harry (Reid Walker) led Galvin to voice that memorable line, “Please tell me that isn’t your penis”. The clip went viral and has since been voted the New Zealand Quote Of The Year by Massey University.
“I’m extremely lucky that the character’s not in coasting mode, that all these challenges are still there, even after 25 years. It’s fantastic,” Galvin says, adding that he never interferes with the writers’ plans.
“I’ve learnt over the years to just roll with whatever you are given. It works out better that way. Anything I could come up would pale in comparison with what the writers could come up with.”
Thanks to those writers, the start of 2018 is far from happy for Chris.
He is facing arrest
after the discovery of beaten, bloodied and unconscious hospital administrator Virginia MacCaskill (Serena Cotton) at the bottom of the stairs in his home, his relationship with nurse Kate (Lauren Devenie) is on the rocks, and his precious daughter Sass is floating unconscious in the sea somewhere off Ferndale.
“The trouble he’s in now is Virginia is at the bottom of the stairs. He knows he didn’t do it and so he just needs her to remember who did it and then he’s going to be fine,” Galvin says.
“However, the worst-case scenario is, of course, if she either doesn’t remember or she ends up dying and is unable to clear his name. That would be very bad.”
And that is just what his arch nemesis, former Ferndale mayor and convicted murderer Mason Coutts (Colin Moy), wanted. Coutts and his son Jasper (Lachlan Forlong) are dead but the Coutts’ plan to bring down the Warner clan and Shortland Street Hospital continues to play out.
Over the past few months, Coutts used Virginia’s fiance Adam (Arron Ward) to bring the hospital to its knees, at the same time paying someone to stalk and terrorise Finn and threatening former wife Sass. Galvin says Chris really has only himself to blame for the problems facing himself and his family as he was the one who brought Coutts into their lives.
“He was warned off Mason but Chris is like, ‘He’s OK, he’s rich’,” the actor says, adding the crooked mayor used Chris’ own shortcomings to bring him down.
“Mason knows that Chris is prone to making bad judgment calls when it comes to people and he’s able to manipulate that.
“Chris needs to be guiding the minds of everyone in his family and also everyone around him. He feels a need to help them in any way he can, financially and also with his advice. I think somewhere in the back of his head, he sees himself as the lord of the manor, helping the less fortunate out.”
The doctor, who really can’t mind his own business, played right into the villain’s hands, particularly when it came to jeopardising his relationship with Kate by becoming involved with Virginia who he discovered was being abused by her fiance Adam.
“I think that is the old Chris Warner flaring up a little bit,” Galvin says.
“The problem was she just reminded him too much of Rachel and however much he loves Kate, Rachel is really the great love of his life and he’ll never get over her.
“He was way too interested in Virginia on a personal level. If he’d kept it professional, probably none of this would have happened but he couldn’t help himself.”