A man of many words
A challenging role enticed Luke Arnold away from his other career as an author, writes Lisa Woolford
HE won a Logie for his brilliant portrayal of Michael Hutchence and has sailed the high seas as Long John Silver in Treasure Island prequel Black Sails.
But Luke Arnold says playing a normal Aussie bloke was the toughest challenge of his career.
That run-of-the-mill man is Josh Carlisle, in Foxtel’s acclaimed black comedy drama The End.
“He’s just a guy who fell in love with a girl and thought he was going to be with her for the rest of his life and then this awful tragedy has come out of nowhere,” Arnold explains.
“Josh is someone who could very much have been me or someone I grew up with.”
Brooke Satchwell plays Josh’s wife Beth, who’s in the end stages of motor neurone disease and wants to die on her own terms. Kate (Frances O’Connor) is their doctor.
It is truly a stunning production – dealing with a range of confronting subject matter from suicide, euthanasia, depression, gender dysphoria– handled in a humane and humorous way.
With demand at a high across the globe for TV, the 36-year-old believes the influx of international productions heading to Australia will only benefit the local industry.
“I always feel like Australia does benefit the more stuff we are doing,” Arnold muses.
“Truthfully, it’s hard to make anything good, even when you get great people and a great idea and everything comes together.”
Arnold says he’s been lucky, he’s almost always been just one step ahead of COVID. And while it certainly wasn’t the year he, and let’s face it anyone of us, had planned, he feels fortunate.
He was supposed to be on a world book tour for his debut novel The Last Smile in Sunder City and its sequel Dead Man in a Ditch, which were both released in 2020. A third book in the Fetch Phillips Archives series is underway.
Arnold had grand plans to be an author until acting took the lead.
“It’s funny, some people can finish a full day and then go and put their hour [of writing] in – I’m really bad at that,” he laughs.
He adds: “I’m getting to know other fantasy authors and plenty work as doctors and in other careers and manage to pull out a big epic fantasy every year.
“It’s very admirable – for me, I can’t even respond to emails or texts. I just have to take a break from everything.”
THE END
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