Alex O’Loughlin is a Sydney native whose original last name is O’Lachlan. He changed the spelling a couple of years ago, I’m guessing because he was tired of people mispronouncing it. Alex graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in 2002 and secured his first film role as the lead, Jack Flinge, in The Oyster Farmer (2004).

In 2005, Alex appeared in a movie he co-produced and help write, Feed. Feed is about the feeders and gainers sexual fetish and its part thriller, part horror movie. Also, that year he was in a schlocky direct to video/tv feature, Man-Thing. You can catch that on the SciFi channel in the US fairly frequently.

2005 was a busy year for Alex O’Loughlin as he also appeared in the Australian mini-series, The Incredible Journey of Mary Bryant. Alex played Mary’s husband, Will Bryant, a role for which he was nominated as Best Lead Actor at the Australian Film Institute Awards and Most Outstanding Actor for the Logie Awards.

Alex also appears in the 2007 release, The Invisible, a supernatural teen flick where he plays the older boyfriend of the movie’s antagonist. After that, Alex made the jump to American tv, with a recurring role in FX network drama, The Shield, during its sixth season. Alex played cop Kevin Hiatt and appeared in episodes 4 through 10 on that series.

He may have continued into season 7 if he hadn’t been cast as the lead in new CBS vampire drama, Moonlight. Luckily for us, he was. Alex plays the vampire private investigator, Mick St. John, in this great little series that saw some ups and downs while it was being brought to the tv screen, but nicely settled into its first season with an appealing cast, and an incredibly sexy vampire protagonist.

Unfortunately, CBS was never happy with the show’s ratings which tending to skew a bit older than the desired demographic and so Moonlight will not be returning for a second season.

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