Interview with Charles Mesure
Charles Mesure talks about his life as Alec
Ross.
In the peaceful, leafy New Zealand suburb of Waimoana, a man wakes
up in a lovely home, to his lovely wife and children. But he can't
remember anything - not who he is, not having a wife and kids, not
even his own name. The people around him call him Alec Ross, but he
only has their word for it. Setting out to discover what's going on
he stumbles on the truth - this is not his life and he may not get
out alive.
Charles Mesure (
V
, Street Legal, Outrageous Fortune)
stars as Alec Ross in this high concept
action-thriller.
Alec's is no average mid-life crisis: should he put himself first
or the family he doesn't recognise as his own? Should he be with
his supposed wife, or the woman he loves? Is it better to be happy
or know the truth? And can he come out of this alive?
This Is Not My Life is created and written for TV
ONE by Gavin Strawhan and Rachel Lang (creators of
Go
Girls
and Outrageous Fortune). Co-creator, writer and
executive producer Strawhan says This Is Not My Life will keep
viewers guessing from beginning to end.
"On one level, is this guy actually having a midlife crisis and has
he created this elaborate fantasy to explain why he feels alienated
from his life? Then there is a sense of satire of modern
society, modern technology and the illusion of freedom - the
illusion in Waimoana is that there is complete freedom of choice,
everyone's free to be there, that they're free to buy what they
want. It's like walking into a shop now and there are 20
brands of bottled water and they're all made by Coca-Cola."
"There's fun to be had with the clean green image of New Zealand,
not too far in the future, where the PeC [Personal Entertainment
Centre] has replaced phones and credit cards, cash has been
replaced by Carbon Credits, and paper is a rare commodity."
Strawhan says
This Is Not My Life is set in a
recognisable but different New Zealand, the day after tomorrow,
where existing cutting-edge modern technology has been refined and
pervades everyday life. All personal and social information is
contained and controlled electronically - and is open to
manipulation.
Alec Ross soon finds that shifting electronic information can both
help and hinder him in his search to uncover the truth about his
seemingly perfect life.
Mesure says most of the TV series he has worked on have been
police, legal, and medical procedural drama, centred around people
doing their jobs.
"Whereas this is about huge stuff - the core problem is this guy is
trying to find out who he is and where he fits into the
universe. Identity, memory and self determination are huge
ideas."
This Is Not My Life gives Charles the chance to be
leading man: "I've never really done that before. I've been
acting for a lot of years and I've always been the antagonist or
the boyfriend of the lead character or the father of. And
I've never actually played a pure protagonist, the guy who the
story's about, so I was very keen to try my hand at it. It's been a
lot of work - in the first half of the series I'm in almost every
scene. And playing this guy you get everything from huge action
sequences to emotional sequences, you know, complicated
storytelling . It's been really exciting."
