I relish the moments when actors and/or their agents reach out to me for an interview because at least ninety-five percent of the time, it is just the opposite. When Matt Young popped up on my Twitter feed, I was quite content to set up an expeditious interview to promote his two upcoming Hallmark appearances this month. While I was unfamiliar with his work before now, I am grateful to him for his candor and detail in relating his unique journey within the entertainment business. 

RH: Please tell us a little bit about your background and how you decided to become an actor.

MY: I am the youngest of four siblings who grew up in Gardner, Massachusetts. All of my siblings had their thing – hockey, a musical instrument, swimming, golf, etc, and I did everything they did to try to be like them. Which is how I became involved in my first play at Elm Street School, playing a shady theatrical agent for a talking snowman. Unlike my siblings, once I did one show, I was hooked! I couldn’t wait to do another. My hometown was blessed with an active community theatre, Theatre at the Mount, and I was able to be in two to four productions every year from then until I finished high school. I knew I had finally found the thing that defined me for me.

I was lucky to be cast in my first professional play at age eighteen, three months after I moved to NYC for college. So I changed my major and decided to give this acting thing a solid try. It’s twenty-eight years later, and I still am being cast in theater, film and TV, so I guess it’s really stuck.

What kind of training have you had and how has that helped you in your career?

I have a Bachelor’s of Music degree in Voice with a Musical Theatre concentration from New York University. It was a competitive programme, and that along with my many years as a competitive swimmer, which taught me how to handle winning and losing at an age-group championship level, I learned to have the strength, skill and determination to become an actor.

I still train often with coaches in Australia (where I moved in 2001) and Los Angeles. I also am an acting coach myself, working with actors online, and through Tukuna Acting Club here in Suva, Fiji (where I have been living since 2014).

I think that anyone who wants to be an actor should be in some sort of training. It doesn’t have to be with anyone famous or in an entertainment capital of the world. Some of the lessons I learned from my directors at Theatre at the Mount in Gardner, MA were the most important acting tips I’ve received, and I still use them to help me analyse a script and develop the backstory for my characters.

Just like a professional athlete, actors have to keep fit, watch their diet, and work out those acting muscles regularly to compete at an elite level. Regular yoga practice and boxing gym sessions help keep me grounded mentally and physically, and are just as important a part of my acting training as the intellectual disciplines.

I think one of your best-known film/TV credits is Captain Cook: Obsession and Discovery. How did that particular job come about for you? Please tell us about your experience on that show.

Captain Cook & Family

I like to joke that the local Australian pub near where I lived had a Captain Cook look-a-like competition, and that’s how I got the job! It’s not that far from the truth.

I had just finished a run of the musical The Producers in Australia, and I got a call from my agent saying our national broadcaster, the ABC (a network similar to PBS in the USA) was casting a four-part mini-series about the famous explorer and they wanted to see me for the part, as they thought I bore a striking resemblance to a well-known picture of Cook painted by Sir Nathaniel Dance-Holland. I had no idea of who Cook was at the time (other than knowing he was as well-known in Australia as George Washington is known in the USA), so I looked up the painting and read a bit about him.

The script hadn’t been written when I first auditioned, so there were no lines to memorise, only improvisations (look out the window of a ship and be surprised to see a kangaroo on shore, yell at your crew for not following orders, etc). I put on my best English accent and gave it my best. Luckily for me, I had no pre-conceived notion of him as a hero, so I portrayed him in a fragile and human way in the audition, which the director really liked. After two more auditions and a wig fitting, I was offered the prt, and flew to Canada to begin shooting about three weeks later.

Since the programme was a tri-production between Australia, New Zealand and Canada, we travelled to, and shot in, those three countries as well as Hawaii, London and Tahiti. The show has been seen by tens of millions of people around the world in hundreds of countries, and even was part of the history curriculum for Australian high school students for many years. Not a bad legacy for my first principal role on an Australian tv show.

You are also known for The Pacific. Any special memories from that show? What did you enjoy about your character?

My role in The Pacific was very small (only a few lines, and about seven seconds of screen time in Episode two), but was influential to the lead character’s story. I played an Army Captain whose moccasins were stolen by the marines when the Army first arrived in Guadalcanal.

The character was based on an actual person from our World War II history, and I wish I were more of a history buff so I could recall all the details. But he was an Army Reservist from one of the Dakota’s who was called to duty during World War II and was in one of the first Army troops to join the Marines in the Solomon Islands after they had been there for some time.

It was an honor to represent our fighting men, and to learn more about America’s military history. The amount of care and compassion that was shown by the production, to accurately represent these ordinary heroes, was humbling. In my scene, when they open my trunk to take the cigars and moccasins, there is a picture of my wife, and other personal effects. The flash of conflict and regret on the face of the actor who took those possessions, an act that would only be carried out in the extreme situation of war, was heartbreaking.

You also had a guest star role on Wrecked. What did you enjoy most about that experience?

Wrecked

Wrecked is hilarious! We were so lucky to have it come film in Fiji for its second and third season, and the cast, crew and creatives feel like family to me. I was originally employed to be a core cast extra (it’s set on a deserted island, with survivors of a plane crash, so they needed the same faces in every episode), and was upgraded to a part in Week seven of the ten-week shoot. Again, just a small role, but a great gig (and the violin bowing lessons I had during the musical The Producers came in handy).

I think what I enjoyed most was filming on a remote beach in Fiji! As you will see in A Summer To Remember and Pearl in Paradise, Fiji has some beautiful locations and wonderful resorts. But it also has thick, jungle-like vegetation and crystal clear water on its beaches. Every day, we would be driven to set, made to look filthy, and then would shoot all day on the beach. Between takes, we sat on logs, dipped our feet in the water, or sat in the crook of trees. It was like a real-life Gilligan’s Island! And there were a big number of people local to Fiji on the cast and crew, many of whom have moved on to other productions (including the Hallmark shows) and have remained great friends. That show, as well as films like Adrift, and the Hallmark movies, continue to grow the film industry in Fiji. Which is great for me as I’m an actor and I live here!

You have a couple of Hallmark films coming up (both of which were filmed in Fiji, I believe). Please tell us about how those roles came about and what your experiences were like on both. Feel free to tell us about your role without spoiling anything.

I play small roles in A Summer To Remember and Pearl in Paradise. I filmed three scenes with Catherine Bell in A Summer To Remember and two scenes with Jill Wagner in Pearl in Paradise.
I auditioned for a larger role in A Summer To Remember, which went to the talented Australian actor Paul O’Brien, but got me noticed by the producers of the movie. So when they needed to fill the part of D.r Bailey, they called me. D.r Bailey works in the same hospital as Catherine’s character, Jessica, and presses her to make a decision about what things are most important to her – career, family and/or love. I guess they liked me, because then they gave me another small role, Ben, the rival magazine photographer to Jill Wagner’s character, Alex, in Pearl in Paradise, which was also shot in Fiji.

In industry speak, these parts are known as “day players”. Your job is to memorise your lines, come onto set, and play scenes with the lead actors, with little or no rehearsal. So it’s a fun job, but you have to have your wits about you! When I walked on set and met Catherine Bell, I was struck almost speechless by her beauty and presence. How was I supposed to match the skill and energy of someone who spends a huge part of her year in production for television shows, and has been doing that for most of her life? It was intimidating to say the least.

But Catherine’s generosity as an actress, and the warm greeting of everyone involved in the production, had me relaxed and working hard in no time at all. (It helped to have a few friends on set who I had worked on in other productions shot in Fiji.) Hallmark has such a wonderful family spirit, a value which is shared by the cast and crew that they employ, that it felt like coming home. And by the time the next movie came along and I shot my scene with Jill Wagner (who loves to rehearse and offered me some great ideas to play around with while we were filming), it felt like I had been working for Hallmark for years.

I will be travelling to the USA to visit family and friends in the later part of the year, so who knows? Maybe I’ll get cast again by Hallmark in a Christmas movie shooting there on in Canada, and I can make it a hat trick (scoring three times for those of you who do not understand the ice hockey reference!)

Since you live in Australia and probably do not have the Hallmark Channel, what did you already know about this network? In light of your recent work with the network, what did you appreciate about being a part of these films?

Though I am a dual US/Australian citizen, and have been living in Australia since 2001, I am currently in Fiji with my family, where my children go to high school. We have a surprising amount of Hallmark productions through Netflix here in Fiji, so I can watch shows like The Good Witch and When Calls the Heart, as well as an occasional Christmas or Wedding movie. Also, my kids go to a Mormon high school, and we are great friends with an American family whose kids also attend, and Tami, the Mom, has been my Hallmark whisperer! She knows everything about the actors and the shows, and has been my trusty advisor. I even helped her get on set as an extra in Pearl in Paradise! And as Tami has stated many times, the best thing about Hallmark, is that you can turn on the TV, and the entire family, from ages five to one hundred five, can sit down and enjoy a movie together without worrying about content being non-family friendly.

When we adopted our children in 2012, I was touring in the musical Annie in Australia, and I wanted to be a part of shows that my children could enjoy. I’ve dealt with many dark characters in my career as an actor, but if I’m not careful, that can take its toll on my mood and state of mind. So what I appreciate about the Hallmark shows is their positivity. I’m also thrilled to see the diversity of actors who are being employed by the network, and applaud them for using local actors from the countries that they shoot in. It was so great to have so many other Fijians on set during the productions shot here.

Any other upcoming works you can mention?

Though I only appear on-screen ever so briefly in the upcoming faith-based film, The Other Side of Heaven 2 (slated for release in April 2019), I was thrilled to revisit my Broadway dancing days as choreographer for the stars of the film, Christopher Gorham and Natalie Medlock. And I can be seen in the documentary Gayby Baby on Netflix, supporting my son Graham in this true story about families like ours.

Do you have plans to do any writing/directing/producing in the near future?

That’s a great question, and one that I get asked often. As an acting tutor, I’m constantly writing and adapting scripts for my students to perform. I’ve been asked to direct/produce a health and nature series based on a book a friend of mine has written and my students want to make a short film, so you never know. I think directing is an inevitable career progression. I’m currently working with University students on my adaptation of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.

What is your favorite season of the year? Why?

I know everyone wants me to say Christmas, and there is a special charm in celebrating that holiday at the beach with seafood in a Southern Hemisphere tropical climate, as well as a white Christmas at home with my folks in Massachusetts…. But I’m going to say the 4th of July and the summer season. My birthday is July 18, so if I play my cards right, I can start the barbecues on Independence Day and continue every weekend until the end of the month! I am a beach lover, a scuba-diver and a swimmer, so any season that includes sun and sand is the one for me.

Thanks again for this wonderful opportunity. And I’m sure you will enjoy the movies. Let’s hope they are the first two of many. I’d love to work for Hallmark again. And when you come to Fiji for a holiday, let me know!

Who could have imagined? This amazing gentleman was actually born in the U.S. and now we’re about to see him in the U.S. on two Hallmark premieres! Indeed, Matt single-handedly demolished some of my preconceived notions of Fiji (I had no idea there was a booming film/TV industry there with access to Hallmark movies!), and my respect for him has multiplied multitudinously. His brilliance united with his dedication and perseverance is something that stupefies the imagination. Moreover, the fact that after all these years of my ignorance of this pillar of talent, I am quite honored to present him to my readers and promote his eventful career. I do hope that everyone tunes in for both of his movies this month (A Summer to Remember premieres August 4th, and Pearl of Paradise premieres August 25th.) on the Hallmark Channel and watch for this “day player” who may just have found a home in the friendliest network on earth. Additionally, I would invite my readers to check out Matt’s links below and consider following him on social media. Years ago, building any semblance of a following or a fanbase within North America for an actor whose primary residence was on the island of Fiji would have seemed too distant to even consider, or at best, would embrace the very remotest of chances. Now, thanks to the beauty of technology and network executives that have the foresight to think outside the box and film on location, especially in less attainable venues, fans all over the world can make a connection with an actor whose experience speaks for itself and who is deserving of every accolade allotted to him. Furthermore, we can all band together to support the career of an industry professional who is gradually making his way to genuine international recognition and the promise of a career that will continue to thrive for numerous years to come.

FOLLOW MATT

Twitter

Instagram

IMDB

Spread the love

Tweet