I think the most challenging aspect was keeping up the degree of physical fitness you need while filming a major leading role in a primetime U.S. series. You have very little time to sleep and eat, let alone train.

When I'm not working, I weight train three times a week and swim and surf as much as I can - in the summer, you usually find me in the water.

New Zealand is a pretty no-nonsense place to work, like Australia. I mean it doesn't falter to anyone.

I'm singing and dancing and playing guitar. I really enjoy pushing myself into different aspects. I'm not going to do this for the rest of my life, but I want to keep challenging myself. And if I'm fearful of something I definitely want to step into it and see how good or bad I am at it.

I'm passionate about being an actor, but I'm definitely not passionate about being a sex symbol.

I think there's always pieces of yourself that bleed into your character. That's inevitable. In some ways, we have similarities, but in other ways, we're completely different. It's hard to say because I'm an actor living in a world where we're all pretty privileged, and this guy is fighting for his life. They're very different circumstances. Within those circumstances, there are probably ways that we react to certain situations that are similar.

McLeod's Daughters was my first regular job out of drama school, and my first full-time role. That was great because I learned a lot, in terms of working in front of the camera. I learned a lot of technical aspects that you take for granted once you know them, but you have to learn them somewhere, along the way. It was a bit of a training ground for me, working in front of the camera and also dealing with media.