Road Less Traveled

Go beyond the beach on a journey into the heart of Hawaii and the soul of Alex O’Loughlin.

- Ryan Devlin

It was early 2010, and the Australian actor had just been offered the lead role on the reboot of the classic crime drama Hawaii Five-0, stepping into the shoes of the legendary Jack Lord to play the 50th state’s taciturn top cop, Steve McGarrett. Accepting meant moving to Oahu, in the center of the planet’s loveliest island archipelago. It should have been a no-brainer. Cue that big wave and the theme song by the Ventures:

Dum-duh-da-da-da-dum …

“I was conflicted,” Alex O’Loughlin says, reflecting on the decision from his house in Waikiki’s idyllic Diamond Head. “I’d done two network shows before that, neither of which had gone past a season.” He’d played vampire/ private investigator Mick St. John on the short-lived 2007 supernatural romance Moonlight. A year later, he was Dr. Andy Yablonski on the medical drama Three Rivers, canceled after just eight episodes. Though anything seemed better than being penniless in Los Angeles, to suffer through another failed show in the middle of the Pacific, 2,500 miles from the mainland, was a risk he wasn’t sure he wanted to take.

“I didn’t know anything about Hawaii. I asked everyone, ‘What do I do? Is this the right move?’ ” O’Loughlin says. “Everybody was like, ‘Are you crazy? What’s wrong with you?’ ”

He took the gig, staying in the Hilton Hawaiian Village during the first month. For fans of the show, that’s where McGarrett and partner Danny “Danno” Williams were recently snookered into a joint spa weekend with their significant others.