With more than two decades of gracing our screens, Erik Thomson is well and truly a household name in Australia.
However, have you ever wondered why the former Packed To The Rafters star never tried his luck in Hollywood?
‘I don’t really have any interest,’ he answers when asked by New Idea.
‘I’m really, really happy with the opportunities I have down here. Sometimes I do tests for American series and they’re all talking about crack and guns and that’s not in my dialogue. I feel like such a phony because I’m putting on this phony accent and talking about things that aren’t me or very Australian. I don’t know if I want to do shows about stuff like that. There are no guns in 800 Words.’
While the father of two is keen to see out the rest of his career in Australia, there was a time when he considered a move to Tinsel Town.
‘I went there because I was filming a Clive Owen movie The Boys Are Back,’ he recalls.
‘They wanted me to go to Toronto to watch the world premiere. So I went there and I met Nicholas Cage and people like that and I went back to LA and it was just after the global financial crisis and I met with an agent – a Scottish man – at one of the big agencies and he said, “Erik, what’s your plan?” And I said, “Well, I’ve worked with Clive Owen, Gina Davis, Toni Colette, I’ve been doing these international films in Australia and I’m kind of thinking about perhaps coming to do some stuff here.” And he said, “You want the truth? No one cares, Erik.” And he was absolutely right.
”It wasn’t to do with me necessarily, it was the global financial crisis, but unless you’re going to arrive in America with a big movie and people are inviting you to go there, if you go to America you start again, from scratch.’
However, Erik admits if he was starting his career all over again, America would absolutely be on the agenda.
‘If I was 24, I would tell people to go to America and start that relationship with America,’ he reasons.
‘But as a 49-year-old actor with a healthy career in Australia, I don’t really think that the work I would do over there would be better than what I do over here. I’m in a good position in the industry here, I don’t really want to go and have to prove myself and start again.’
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