Fed: New girl on McLeod's a far cry from her character

AAP General News (Australia)
02-02-2007
Fed: New girl on McLeod's a far cry from her character

By Michael Gadd, National Entertainment Writer

SYDNEY, Feb 2 AAP - Actress Gillian Alexy has studied her craft on three continents,
speaks fluent French, plays guitar and has trained in both classical and contemporary
dance.

It's hardly the ultimate grounding for someone who will soon be best known to Australian
TV audiences as a cattle-wrangling wild child on McLeod's Daughters.

Alexy, 23, entered the outback drama as Tayler Geddes during last year's series finale.

She arrived at Drover's Run to exact revenge on Regan McLeod (Zoe Naylor) who she blamed
for her father's death in a mine accident.

A tough customer who knows her way around a farm, her thirst for revenge was shortlived
and she was invited by Regan to stay and work on the farm.

One of only two remaining McLeods on the farm, tenuously linked by the show's writers
to the family bloodline through Jack McLeod's estranged brother, Regan will come to regret
her decision during this season.

Tayler is a handful from the outset.

In the series return, she'll steal money from the farm's shearing shed and nicks off
with Stevie's (Simmone Jade MacKinnon) ute.

"Yeah, you could say I'm different to that," Alexy says. "But you always find common
ground with the characters you play.

"Most people can relate to being an angry teenager and having the same sort of frustrations
as Tayler."

The daughter of two dancers, Alexy spent her childhood hanging around the Western Australian
Academy of the Performing Arts (WAAPA) campus and her acting, dancing and musical talents
were nurtured.

A love of horses was also encouraged for a couple of years, when Alexy's mother would
drive her to outer Perth for riding camps.

Little did she know it would come in handy on a TV set years later.

"I hadn't been on a horse for something like 13 or 14 years, so had a lot to learn
when I got on set, but having the general idea was an advantage," she says.

Tayler is a tearaway who grew up in tough mining camps after her father lost the family farm.

Rough and witty, she is likely to spice-up a McLeod's set undergoing a period of dramatic
change with new characters Marcus (Matt Passmore) and Grace (Abi Tucker) also to be introduced.

"Even though my experiences haven't been anywhere near as dramatic as Tayler's, you
draw on other things to make those moments truthful," she says.

"They don't even have to be about yourself.

"She's a very independent kind of wild child ... I think I'm an extremely independent person."

After graduating from a specialist arts school in 2000 and a brief period working for
a children's theatre group in Perth, Alexy moved to Sydney before strapping on a backpack.

She studied at The Actors Centre in London, and in Paris at Le Centre de les Arts Vivants
and Peter Goss Dance Studio.

When she went to live with her father in the United States to study at University of
Colorado she worked for $2.13 an hour in a steak house and $4 an hour in retail to pay
tuition.

"That made me realise how important study is, especially in that country," she says.

"Without qualifications you just get the shittest jobs and the worst pay.

"While I was doing that I always had in the back of my mind, `How long can I justify
working in a job that doesn't satisfy me?'"

Not long, was the answer.

"It's a tricky industry," she says of film, theatre and television.

"You go to New York or LA and every waiter wants to be a writer, director or actor.

"But there's a common thread, everybody wants to do it because they love it."

Well aware of the tough competition she faces as an actress in an industry when supply
far outweighs demand, Alexy is ecstatic to have a full time job.

"Home and Away or Neighbours would probably have more security than McLeod's," she says.

"You know, Blue Heelers was going for ages then all of a sudden, gone.

"There isn't much work out there, but you still have to pick and choose what you want
to do. You have to try and structure your career the way you want it to go.

"(McLeod's) is a great opportunity for me."

AAP mdg/evt/de/cdh

KEYWORD: MCLEODS ALEXY (AAP TV FEATURE) (PIX AVAIL) RPTG

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