Actor Luke Arnold first became known to Australians on a main stream scale when he portrayed Michael Hutchence in the mini-series INXS: Never Tear Us Apart. Arnold then went on to gain international recognition as a lead on the US drama Black Sails.
2020 was a busy year for Arnold who released his first novel titled The Last Smile in Sunder City followed by his second novel Dead Man In A Ditch later in the same year.
Mediaweek spoke to Arnold about life as an author as well as his career as an actor including his return to Aussie screens through Home and Away.
When we spoke with the actor, he was in the middle of a tour with the pop culture expo Supanova, which has since been delayed. Arnold said that he had relished the opportunity to connect with fans of his work, especially considering he hadn’t done many expos like this before.
“I never did any of these before. There was one time that Zach McGowan, who played Vane on Back Sails, and I did a little signing in San Diego [for Comic-Con] one year, but that was just an excuse to be there for the party.
“But now doing Supanova in the Gold Coast and Melbourne I am really loving it, it’s such a great community with the guests, the fans and all the other creative people there. And I am straddling the two worlds now being there as both an actor and as a writer.
“It is the first time I can really hang out with other authors because my books came out last year and I didn’t get to do the events I had planned. This was my first time getting to go out with my books and meet some fans of the acting and some fans of the writing.”
Luke Arnold: Author
The year 2020 saw Arnold release not one but two fiction novels and Arnold said that he is enjoying juggling being an emerging author and continuing his acting career.
“2020 wasn’t the ideal year to be a debut author let alone putting two books out in the one year, but going back and forth between acting and writing I have been enjoying it a lot. I am lucky enough that jobs are coming in and I work steadily but there is always a gap between things.
“I finished a job in Sydney a couple of weeks ago, and my next one is not for a couple of months so it’s the perfect time to get some writing done.”
Arnold said that it is hard to know how the books are going because it’s a world that he does not have much experience in, but he is optimistic about the process so far.
“People seem to be buying them, liking them, and we are editing the third book in the series now and there are plans to keep doing more so fingers crossed it turns out all right.”
Two books in one year are rare from a writer and Arnold said not to expect that level of volume from him again, but one book a year may be possible.
“From the point I finished the first one to when we got it out, that took quite a while so that’s why I was able to follow up the first one so quickly.
“While we were working out the release of the first one, the different countries and how that was being handled I had time to really run ahead with the second. I definitely won’t be putting out two books every year as an ongoing routine!
“Maybe one book a year is probably doable, and I think that routine I can keep up depending on how I balance that with the acting.”
Luke Arnold on Black Sails
Arnold is best known to American audiences for his work on Black Sails, Arnold described the role as a dream job.
“It was the perfect job in so many ways. When you sign on for anything you never know what it is going to be.
“You might get the pilot script or maybe a couple of scripts but even if that is good you don’t know what the actors will be like, or the directors will be like or where you will be living. There is this gamble that happens every time especially when you sign a multiyear contract, and with Black Sails I couldn’t have hoped for anything better.”
Arnold said that the show continued to improve each season because there was a clear idea of what they were trying to achieve.
“No one quite knows what type of show you’re going to be in at the start, and they have different ideas, as actors you are looking to your directors and showrunners and producers trying to work out what it is meant to be according to them.
“We came back for season two knowing what the show was now, when you start a show there is sometimes that feeling of too many cooks in the kitchen, but by then we knew.”
The series was filmed in South Africa which Arnold also credited with helping improve the quality of the performances.
“Over time our cast really galvanised. One of the blessings, when you work on the other side of the world, is that all you can do is focus on the job and really commit to it. It was like we were developing a play for four years with that level of rehearsal.”
Arnold said that another reason the show continued to improve after season one was that they were able to have more sets to play with.
“At that point we had one and a half ships and the town and it was like ‘okay you pretty much have to do all your story on these sets because it cost us a lot of money and that’s what it is’.
“Then at the beginning of season two the world starts opening up and we begin to see different places and characters start to go off on their own adventures and that really helped shaped where the show was going.
“By the time we were in season four we were spread all across the world, building sets just to see them once before we blow them up, setting ships on fire and hunting sharks, the scope of the show became quite mammoth by the end.”
Treasure Island?
With Black Sails being a prequel to the famed Treasure Island story, Arnold said that he wouldn’t rule out reprising the character of John Silver in the original tale.
“I reckon we need to let John Steinberg, Dan Shotz and Robert Levine do another couple of projects and then maybe we all come back and do that next adventure.”
Home and Away
Most actors do a show like Home and Away before going to Hollywood but due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Arnold did it the other way around with a turn as Dr. Lewis Hayes on the Aussie soap.
“2020 for me was meant to be a bit of a world-wide book tour. I was in LA doing some stuff there and preparing for the book tour and that got scuppered and I found myself back in Australia.
“I think Home and Away and Neighbours were the only things shooting in Australia. They called me up, and I guess that I have an existing relationship with Seven because I played Michael Hutchence in Never Tears Us Apart. When it came up, I was like that is something that I have never done before and is an Australian staple.
“It is the type of show where you make so much TV every week and everyone is working really hard, and it was in the back of my head a good way to let people know that I am back in town and might be around for things.”