Kiwi actor Erik Thomson I'M DONE WITH RAFTER S!

The Packed To The Rafters star reveals why he won't be playing Dave ever again

- Helen Vnuk.

He’s beloved on both sides of the Tasman for his roles in Packed To The Rafters and 800 Words, but Erik Thomson could’ve been even more famous as a hobbit or elf.

The Scottish-born, Tauranga-raised actor reveals he was a couple of months into filming long-running Aussie medical drama All Saints when he got a call that might have changed his life.

“I got offered an audition for Lord Of The Rings and turned it down because I’d just signed a two-year contract with All Saints,” he recalls. “In retrospect, I should have done the test and if I’d got it, I probably could have got out of All Saints because Lord Of The Rings would have launched an international film career.”

Of course, sticking with All Saints turned out pretty well for Erik, 55. He smiles, “It set up my career in Australia, but I look back at that moment where I said to my agent, ‘No, I won’t put an audition down,’ and I go, ‘I wonder what would have happened if I had?’”

Growing up in the Bay of Plenty in the ’70s, Erik didn’t harbour dreams of becoming an actor.

“I loved doing school plays and reading things out loud in class,” he says. “But I never thought, ‘I’ll make it a career.’”