Interview with Alex in The Sunday Herald Sun's TV Guide (Dec. 16, 2012 )

The interview obviously took place in November, two weeks after baby son Lion was born (Oct. 25), but was published Dec. 16. Scott is also making a few comments in the interview, by the way.

Family matters- 'Hawaii Five-0' star Alex O'Loughlin opens up on mortality, rehab and fatherhood

The bloodshot eyes are a worry and even O'Loughlin admits he sounds like he's drunk.
But here's the happy news. "I have a new baby, so I haven't slept for two weeks, which is why I'm drinking a lot of water and I sound like I'm drunk," the H50 star deliriously rambles.
"I'm not drunk" - "Well, I'm not that drunk".
Wearing all the signs of new fatherhood as well as he does his snug navy jumper, pin-striped shirt and jeans, the Australian actor is clearly in a good place right now.

It's a world away from March this year, when O'Loughlin checked himself in for a short stint in rehab, undergoing treatment for prescription painkillers he became addicted to after being prescribed a powerful medication for a shoulder injury.
Out of plenty of time to prepare for the birth of his new son, back then, O'Loughlin who plays the leading man Steve McGarrett on "Hawaii Five-0", told it as it was.

"I got hurt pretty bad on the show and I ended up taking painkillers to get to work," O'Loughlin said then.

Today, bursting to chat about the "peanut", or Lion Kahano O'Loughlin as he will be known to the world, the 36-year-old (The TV guide mistakably wrote "38-year-old") doesn't paint a Hollywood portrait of his second shot at parenting.

His 15-year-old son, Saxon, now living with his dad in Oahu, has given the actor a unique perspective on his new baby's birth.

Juggling a young family (which includes partner, Hawaiian surfer and model Malia Jones and her son Spike from her marriage to Aussie surfer Luke Stedman) with the 70 hours a week on the Five-0 set, means Alex O'Loughlin knows there are going to be some growing pains.

"You want to feel like you're in a losing battle. Have a baby."
"Not only do you feel like you're in a losing battle, but with children you're covered in poop half the time."
"There's no integrity or dignity when you're a parent."
"There's no sleep and there's lots of people and there's lots of yelling and there's lots of ..." O'Loughlin trails off.
"You can't revert to being a child," he adds.
If you expected him to be like his clammed-up TV character Steve McGarrett, think again.

"I think for me being a father defines me not only as a man, but as a human being. It's the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. People say: 'Oh, we're not going to have kids yet, we're going to wait because we're not ready. We want to earn this much money, we want to do this.'
- I don't know how to tell you this, but you're never ready."

Admittedly, the demands of 4a.m. starts for this leading man get him out of night-feeds, but he says: "We help each other out and we just do it."

His domestic bliss is in stark contrast to the fictional McGarrett's family life, complicated this season by the return-from-the-dead of his mother (played by Christine Lahti), which O'Loughlin tips opens "a whole Pandora's box that shatters McGarrett's trust."

Still, the show's bromance is as fun and fractitious as ever, mirrored off-screen between Alex O'Loughlin and his co-star Scott Caan.

The latter reveals the duo had clashed in the first season ("our egos kind of bumped") as they came to grips with the pressure of fronting a network show.

"The first year it was a lot of kicking and screaming because at the end of the day we're all just trying to do something good," Caan says.

He mocks O'Loughlin's family situation in a Danno and McGarrett "cargument" kind of way. "I don't envy him because he's got a lot of things - he's got three kids and he's got a dog and two assistants. Alex likes to complicate things", he chides.

O'Loughlin responds to the criticism like a red-blooded Aussie bloke would, calling Caan a "cheeky bastard".

"I do complicate things. Like, I'll buy a house, get a puppy and take on a new lead role at the same time," he says.
"I'm complicating things less," he adds, two weeks after his (youngest) son has been born. "but I think my life feels very, very full right now."

"I have two sons, my partner has two sons, that makes three (between us) in total. We have a very energetic dog. I have a mortgage and a house and a big show and I'm like, 'you know what? That's good.' "

On a serious note, he adds "A lot of people come and go, like people die all the time. - I buried my grandmother not so long ago, and I was very close to her and it's like, you don't know what's going to happen. And I want to be alive now. I'm ready now.
I don't want to wait to have kids. If it's right, it's right, you know? God forbid something happens to me.
I want to know everything and to have done everything on my death bed, wherever that may be. I don't want to lay there going, 'God, I wonder what my kids would have looked like?' "

Leaning in, he finishes: "Pay attention, Scott, you should read this interview, oh childless man."

END - And that's what a happy daddy looks like :-)

The photo is from the same press conference and day - however, from a
TV interview by ET Canada
 

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