Guy Pearce: 'I'll always be Mike in the UK'

Guy Pearce: 'I'll always be Mike in the UK'
Guy Pearce: 'I'll always be Mike in the UK' (Image credit: PA Archive/Press Association Ima)

Former Neighbours actor Guy Pearce may be a big movie star these days, but he says he's still best remembered for his soap role in the UK. The Emmy winner and star of films such as Memento, LA Confidential and new sci-fi action movie Lockout, will always be Erinsborough heartthrob Mike Young to a section of British fans. "It's funny because it feels like I haven't even left Neighbours when I come back to England," Cambridgeshire-born Guy said. "It seems so present in everybody's minds and I can't deny the fact it's nice to know it had the effect it did here." That said, the fame that went with the Australian serial drama was difficult for him to cope with at the time, the actor admitted. "I really recoiled from the instant stardom that the show attracted," he said. He left the soap after four years then popped up in the odd TV series and even appeared in panto, before his brilliant breakout performance as an outrageous drag queen in 1994's The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert. "I thought, 'What a great film to do after Neighbours'," he said. "I don't know if I had a plan. I was just taking whatever opportunities there were and trying to do the best I could." Guy's latest film Lockout is in cinemas from Friday April 20.

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.