Louis Sutherland plays Marty
Marty is a man with secrets. Big secrets. It started with his job as a 'respected' travel writer, one who seldom leaves his office.
But Marty's deceptions aren't confined to his profession. It began when he dated two women at once, Rachel and Maxine, and never did decide which one to break up with...
So now Marty's life is a constant scramble to meet his deadlines and financial commitments, but keep his families apart and in the dark.
Louis Sutherland's thoughts on playing Marty
"Hey, I've just got a lot of love to give!" laughs actor Louis Sutherland in a half-hearted defence of his duplicitous character, Marty, on The Insider's Guide to Love.
"I say all credit to the guy. He's been running between two families for seven years and we all know how hard it is to keep one relationship going&"
All joking aside, Louis says he relished the challenge of playing someone whose actions are likely to polarise viewers' opinions:
"You could easily write Marty off as the bad guy whereas he's simply trying to please too many people," Louis explains. "He's got himself caught up in a situation that has owned him in the end and he can't come clean because he doesn't want to hurt anyone so now the whole thing has grown and grown until it's bigger than his life."
"He's got two great women whom he loves for different reasons: Rachel's so damn gutsy and admirable and Maxine's softer and more accepting. So Marty gets all the affirmation he needs from them both without thinking through the consequences and how devastated they feel when they find out about each other."
35-year-old Louis says he was delighted to be chosen to portray
such a complex and pivotal character in The Insider's Guide to Love
and worked really hard to show that while Marty might be a 'lying
bastard' on one level, he's still human and vulnerable on
another.
"My biggest challenge has been to justify his behaviour by adding
in the human elements, so that people will empathise with his
plight, namely that he's in love with two women and is very
confused and unsure.
"If I've done it well enough, I'll engender some viewer sympathy. If not, I'd better start bracing myself now for the insults I'm going to get when it screens!"
Ironically, Louis found that the usual disorientation of making a
television series, where everything is shot out of sequence,
actually worked in his favour when it came to understanding
Marty:
"Because none of my scenes were chronological, I felt like a tossed
salad for the first few weeks of shooting," he explains. "But then
I had a revelation and realised Marty always feels like that!
Flipping from one thing to another, that is Marty's life."
Some of Louis' favourite scenes are when Marty is talking to people, some of whom are aware that he's lying but most of whom aren't. A good example of this is during the travel talk he gives in episode 5:
"Often Marty has to 'act within an act' and in that instance, the sad thing is that he manages to fool everyone in the room- except the one that's most important to him."
Things to know and love about Louis Sutherland
Louis graduated from Toi Whakaari (as a mature student) in 2003.
He has many other strings to his bow: director, presenter, writer
He was
last seen on our screens as Mr Hakanui in Seven periods with Mr
Gormsby and has an
upcoming role in King Kong (as a crew member on the S.S
Venture)
His next gig is co-directing the new series of 'AA Torque show'
He's co-written a short film called Run (which is being produced by Ainsley Gardiner & Cliff Curtis)
He's a dad, with a new baby due in October 2005
The things
that Louis loves:
Family first and foremost. Would do anything for his partner and
kids as well as his parents and siblings (1 sister, 5 half-sisters
and 3 half-brothers)
Food! He loves to cook and be cooked for.
Coastlines and flying kites
