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Patrick Brammall

Today I'm going to be learning about the actor Patrick Brammall.  I've watched him in Offspring and A Moody Christmas. I like him a lot in both those shows; though I think his character in Offspring was a little more endearing.

On Offspring, Brammall portrayed Leo, who became a love interest for Nina.  When the show ended, and they were together, I was satisfied with the pairing. But now I'm rethinking that. I think they're a good couple but maybe just temporarily. I can't really picture Nina spending her life with Leo. So then I'm wondering, who should she end up with?

I think maybe Nina should go Lesbian. I don't know why. I'm picturing her with a woman. Maybe Eloise would be a good match?

Or maybe not. Maybe Nina would fit better with an older woman rather than a younger one.

I don't know....

I should get to the Patrick Brammall stuff.

There's not much on his IMDb bio, so I'll just move onto his IMDb filmography.

It's long...longer than I expected.

I'm not going to go over everything. I'll be skipping movies in which I can't find a lot of information. And I'll also be skipping one time appearances on TV shows, unless they happen to be TV shows that I personally watch. For example, if he's been on All Saints, I'll read about that, because I've been watching All Saints. Therefore it might be interesting to me.

Also, no matter what. I usually will talk about the first thing on filmographies. For Bramall, that is a 2004 TV movie called The Alice.

I'm guessing it's about Alice Springs. I think there's a book called The Alice.

Okay. I just looked. I'm right. The movie is about Alice Springs and a solar eclipse.

Is it the same as the book?

Well, it looks like I'm totally wrong.  From what I can see, there isn't a book. What I was probably thinking about was The Alice TV show.  That show came out in 1995 and was born from the movie.
Bramall was one of the stars of the show.

Another person on the movie and TV show that I know is Jessica Napier. Well, I don't know her personally. But I know OF her.

Oh! Also. Simon Burke was on the show.

Here's the opening credits for the show. Brammall can be seen at :34.  He was on twenty-two episodes of the show from 2005-2006.

In 2007, Brammall was in a short film called Prada Handbag. It's on YouTube, so maybe I'll watch it later.  It's fairly long, though, so I might not. It depends on how long this post takes me and whether I'm burned out by the time I'm done with the filmography.

Also in 2007, Brammall was on Home and Away. His character was named Ethan Black. The Back to the Bay site has information about Black.

From what I'm reading, I'm getting the idea that Ethan Black wasn't a very good person. He drugged a woman. He bribed someone into stealing morphine from the hospital. He scared someone by faking his death. And he blackmailed someone.

This episode might have Brammall.

Yep. He's there. He appears at 2:30, but I couldn't really tell it was him until 2:50. They don't give a clear view of his face until then.

Guess what. Brammall WAS on All Saints!  In 2008, he was on an episode in season 11. He played a character with Aspergers.

Also, in 2008, Brammall was on a short-lived show called Canal Road.  It's about a medical and legal advisory centre.  Lord Wiki says it didn't do too well with critics or ratings.

Here's a promo for the show. Brammall can be seen at :17.

Wait! Is that Sibylla Budd? It looks like her (:29) and sounds like her. I must confess that I had to look up her name. I had it all wrong in my head. I Googled Sylvia.

Anyway...just looked at the credits for Canal Road. It IS Sibylla Budd. But then why didn't I write about Canal Road when I wrote about her?  Maybe I did and forgot about it?

The show looks wild.

In 2009, Bramall was in the short film Being Carl Williams. It's available on YouTube, so it's another movie I MIGHT watch later.  According to it's description on YouTube, it was a Tropfest finalist.

Being Carl Williams is only five minutes long, so I might be more interested in watching that than the longer film. We'll see....

Bramall was in an episode of the 2nd season of Rush.  The episode was called Milos Fink, and Brammall played Milos Fink. So he was probably very important to the story.

In 2010, Brammall was in the short film Shock. And this was the WINNER of Tropfest.  That's quite prestigious.  It's on YouTube. I'll be watching it later, hopefully.

Also, in 2010 Brammall played Kim Beasley in the TV movie Hawke. Asher keddie, his Offspring co-star, was in it too. She played Blanche d'Alpuget.  I was about to say I don't know who that is. But I think I do.  I think she was Hawke's biographer; and then she became his second wife.

Lord Wiki says I'm right. I'm feeling so smart.  Not as smart as Doctorized Donna Noble. But smart enough.

Seeing the Hawke movie made me remember something I forgot earlier. I've seen Brammall in something else recently. At Home With Julia. I think he was in either the last episode or second to last one. He played Julia Gillard's personal assistant, who was tricked by Rudd into switching allegiances.

Brammall was in 2010's Griff the Invisible.  I've been wanting to see that, because of Ryan Kwanten. And also the storyline looks really good to me. What's sad is, I started wanting to see it when it first came out. That's four years ago. I'll get to it someday. Probably.

Now I can add Brammall to my reasons for wanting to see it.

Tim and I were actually hoping to watch it a few weeks ago. Or really...I wanted to watch it, and Tim was willing to find it and watch it with me. We couldn't find it for free on the programs we already belong to (Netflix and Amazon Prime), so we kind of gave up. But Tim just bought an on-sale iTunes gift certificate. Maybe we can use that to watch it.  Although right now we're busy with Torchwood. We just started watching that last night.

I've decided we need to take breaks from Doctor Who. I like binge-watching, but I'm not sure it's a great idea to finish one season and jump to the next season the very next day.  In September, I was devastated, sobbing over the loss of Rose Tyler; then two days ago, she returned. Rose and the Doctor are running towards each other having this major reunion.  For them, it was a couple of years that they were apart. For me, it was three weeks.

Okay, and to be honest...the main reason I'm wanting us to watch other shows is I'm procrastinating the whole regeneration thing.  I want to keep David Tennant as our Doctor for as long as possible. Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration. If I wanted to, we could just quit watching the show and never see Matt Smith as the doctor. I'm not going to go that far. But maybe we can keep Tennant with us for a few more weeks.

I should get back to Brammall and Griff the Invisible.

Here's the trailer.

I don't see Brammall, but I heard him at 1:44.

Oh...and he appears very briefly at 2:10 or 2:11.

I'm wondering if the movie will have a The Boy Who Could Fly type ending. Or is it a depressing story about mental illness? A delusion thing. I suppose it could be an uplifting movie about mental illness. But I prefer the other type of story—the one where it ends up the delusional character isn't delusional after all.

I was thinking the girl in the trailer looks familar to me. I looked at her on IMDb.  She's Maeve Dermody. I saw her recently on Bikie Wars.

In 2011, Brammall was in the short film Dik. I don't see the movie online, but the trailer is available.  It looks cute. Maybe. The basic story is a child brings home artwork that makes his parents wonder if he might be gay.

2011 was also the year that Brammall was on At Home with Julia. He was in the last episode.

Brammall was in yet another short film: Bars and Tone. That one's online as well.

And the short film list keeps growing. In 2012, Brammall was in Dave's Dead. I'll have to watch that one. Stefan Dennis is in it! I miss seeing him on Neighbours.

I have quite a lot of short films to keep me busy today. So I think I'll probably skip the not-so-short film. Maybe I'll watch it someday in the future.  Or maybe someone reading this can watch it and then tell me if it's something that shouldn't be missed.

Brammall was in a a comedy mini-series called The Strange Calls. Lord Wiki says it's about a police officer who gets transferred to a country town where the emergency calls our strange. Hence the title. It sounds fun.

I was looking at the credits and saw the name Katherine Hicks. She was on John Safran's show!  He takes her to Europe so he can get over his hang-ups regarding "Shiskas".  His grand plan is to make out with her in Anne Frank's Attic. I was about to say diary. That would would be surreal.

Awesome! I was looking for a trailer for The Strange Calls on YouTube, and I saw a promo from Hulu. They have the show, and I actually already had learned that, because it's on my to-watch list. I learned it, but I forgot. Typical.

Here's the Hulu trailer.  Brammall looks different in this than he usually does. I'm not sure if I'd recognize him without his voice.

I think I could like this. I was wanting Australia to have something science fiction/fantasy, and maybe this kind of fulfills that.

A Moody Christmas was in 2012. Here's the promo for that.

In 2013, Brammall was in The Elegant Gentleman's Guide to Knife Fighting. I wrote about that recently when I did my post on Jane Harber.  Here's a skit featuring Brammall.  I think it's more sad and annoying than funny. But I also think the idea is very creative. There's a guy who works as a performer on a children's program. He has a cartoon voice, and it ends up the voice is his real life voice. It works quite well on television but not so well when he's on a date with his partner.

Also in 2013, Brammall played Rupert Murdock in Power Games: The Packer-Murdoch Story.  Lachy Hulme, another one of Brammall's Offspring co-stars, played Packer.

And we also get Maeve Dermody again! She plays Anna Torv. For a moment I confused Torv with Poppy Montgomery and was about to ask what happened to The JK Rowling movie. Did that ever come out?

Here's the trailer for the Packer-Murdoch thing.

Why is Anna Torv in the story?

I'm consulting Lord Wiki. Maybe he'll know.

He does know. He says Anna Torv's paternal aunt was married to Rupert Murdoch.  Her name was Anna too. So I think it's the aunt that''s a character in the movie and not the actress.

This year, Brammall has been in a few projects besides Offspring.

There's the movie The Little Death. Here's the trailer.  It's about sex—fetishes, roleplaying, phone sex, and other things. It looks kind of cute.

Well, I made the same mistake I always make with IMDb filmographies. I missed a TV show.

So back up a year.

In 2013, Brammall started working on the show Upper Middle Bogan.  Here's the trailer.  I've seen it before. I mean...I knew I had heard of it before, and I mentioned it when I wrote about Jane Harber, because she's friends with one of the stars. But I think I've actually seen the trailer before. I kind of think maybe I saw it when we were in Australia.

It looks cute. The premise is, a young upper middle class doctor realizes her parents aren't her biological parents, and her bio-kin are bogan folks.

Getting back to 2014. Brammall appeared in the continuation of the Moody family story: The Moodys. I wonder if the show will have another season in 2015.

Here's the trailer for it. I'm eager to watch it. I want to know what happens next to the Moody's.

Marshall Napier from McLeod's Daughters plays Jane Harber's father.

I recognized Tim Mathieson in the trailer; not the real one, but the guy who played him in At Home with Julia.  I consulted Lord Wiki and IMDb. It turns out the actor is Phil Lloyd, and he was in The Moody Christmas as well. I didn't recognize him when I saw At Home With Julia, and I had just finished watching A Moody Christmas a few days before.

Lloyd is also the writer of the Moody stuff. And he wrote At Home with Julia. Now that I think of it—the humor is pretty similar.

I'm almost done with Brammall's filmography. There are two more things...upcoming.

There's a movie called Super Awesome. It's a comedy-musical about making a musical.

Then there's the movie Ruben Guthrie which was written and directed by Brendan Cowell from Love My Way. Brammall plays the title character.

Who is Ruben Guthrie?

Well, I thought he would be a real person. But he's not. It looks like he's a figment of Brendan Cowell's imagination.

Ruben works for an advertising agency and is dating a model. Then he drinks too much and thinks he can fly.  It's a story about alcoholism and probably does not have a The Boy Who Could Fly type ending.

I'm done with the filmography. I'm wondering what I should do next—watch the short films or read some interviews?

Maybe I'll start with the interviews. I don't really know anything about Brammall yet. I just realized that.  I've spent hours on this post, and really, I've learned nothing.

Well, I learned what movies and TV shows Brammall has been in. I suppose that's something. Well, and it's kind of important, since acting his is career, and his career is probably a big deal in his life.

Here's an interview on Tumblr.  Well, actually it's not from Tumblr. The Tumbler people (fans of Offspring) got the interview from TV Week. 

Here we go... Here's the original interview.

It says that when Brammall got his Offspring role, the first thing he did was call Matthew Le Nevez. Le Nevez played Patrick on Offspring. Not Patrick Brammall, but Patrick Reid. And Le Nevez was Brammall's milkman in real life. That's cute and not something I learned when I did my post on Le Nevez.

Are there a lot of milkmen in Australia? The only time that we had a milkman was when we lived in Madison Wisconsin. That was in the early 80's. Now we get our milk from the grocery store.

The article/interview says the reason Brammall called Le Nevez was to get advice about working with the cast. Or actually it sounds like he wanted reassurance.  Kind of like, will I like these people or not.? This is before he accepted the role.

Le Nevez told Brammall that the Offspring people were good people.

But just because a group is good for your friend doesn't mean they'll work well with you. I'm thinking of my family. They'll tell me someone is so wonderful, nice, down to earth, etc. Then I meet the person and can hardly stand them.

Or look at Doctor Who (again!). For Billie Piper and David Tennant, the cast and crew were wonderful. For Christopher Eccleston...maybe not so much.

Ah. Guess what. That Tumblr page is going to come in handy after all. TV Week provides only a glimpse of the interview. You have to buy the magazine to read the rest, which wouldn't be easy for me to do.

The Tumblr people were nice and copied it for me.  What they did MIGHT be plagiarism. But I'm thankful to them, anyway. And they did give credit to the source.  That was decent of them.

The milkman relationship happened in Canberra. Brammall would write notes to Le Nevez asking for strawberry milk.

I imagined that they were friends, but the article says Brammall looked him up. So maybe they hadn't talked since the milkman days. Hey, I don't know if you remember me but you were once my milkman, and.....

When Brammall was offered the role, he had other plans in mind. He was planning to come to Los Angeles for pilot season. I wonder if he still wants to do that someday. Or is he now satisfied enough with television in Australia?

Earlier in Offspring's history, Brammall was offered a role on Offspring and turned it down. I wonder why. I would imagine most actors would be excited about the opportunity. It almost seems like he had a fear of Offspring.  He says no to a guest role and then has to call his milkman for advice when he gets a starring role.

Further down in the interview, Brammall explains his hesitation, at least with joining the show as a cast member.  It was an established cast. That makes sense. I think most of us can relate to joining something where everyone else already knows each other. I actually saw that in my John Safran episode today. He went to Jewish camp, but the other kids had gone to camp previously. They all knew each other and had their little private jokes. He felt alienated.

Brammall has a wife. Her name is Samantha.

And here he answers my question about America. He's still interested but also interested in continuing work in Australia.

That would be cool if he appeared on one of my American shows.

You know...I can totally picture him on American Horror Story.

Brammall says he didn't have a great time on Home and Away. It wasn't that the cast was awful and he felt left out. The sun bothered him. He ended up squinting a lot. I wonder if he has problems with vision like I do. I don't know what I have...haven't bothered with an eye doctor. But I'm very sensitive to certain imagery. It makes me nauseated. Things like bright light. Tim was using his iPhone flashlight the other day. He didn't shine the light in my face. But just seeing it made me feel sick. I do bad with 3D movies. I have low tolerance for people putting things up to my face. It makes me very irritated.  I'm also bothered by photographs where part of it is clear and the other part is blurred.

My problem is likely more mental or neurological than visual. Who knows....

Here's a very recent article about Brammall. It's from yesterday!

The article says he's getting a lot of attention from Offspring fans.

Brammall says, acting is about wearing clothes that are inappropriate for the weather. That's awesome. I like that. I mean I like his statement. I'm not saying I like it when actors are freezing or sweating in their clothes. I'm not a sadist.

Here's something quite funny. Brammall's wife is an Offspring fan. When Patrick (the character, not her husband) died, she said, I pity the poor guy that has to follow him. Then her husband got that role. Or so the article says. It's not exactly true. Thomas was the next love interest, actually. And he wasn't a poor guy. He was an asshole. Well, the character was. The actor was probably okay.

The article says that Brammall met his wife Sam on the set of The Alice. Because her last name isn't given, I'm guessing she was crew and not part of the cast. Although I don't know why I'm guessing that. Why couldn't they mention a crew member's last name?

Well...you know what. Now that I think of it. They might be more likely to mention an actresses last name, because it's an opportunity for her to promote herself.  Then again, why wouldn't a crew member want to promote herself?

Shit. I should have just read a few paragraphs down.

I feel that's my theme for this post—asking questions and then realizing the answer is right here in front of me.

Sam was part of the crew.

Sam talks about how she sees the different characters Brammall has played in her husband. She sees his Leo side but he also sees is Moody side. And there are other sides as well. That's interesting. I wonder if spouses of other actors see the same kind of thing.

The first person that came to my mind for some reason is Andrew Lincoln from The Walking Dead.  Okay. Actually it was David Tennant. But I figured I should talk about someone else for a change. So let's go with Andrew Lincoln. I think he's married. So...does his wife sometimes see glimpses of Rick Grimes when she's with him?  Well, maybe he'd have to change his accent for that to happen. But how about when he's being English, is it still possible for Rick Grimes to seep through?

Brammall's parents sound wonderful to me. They've gone to all of his plays minus one. That's fantastic. And they supported his acting dreams from when he was very young. I love that.

Brammall's dad actually worked for Murdoch for awhile. And then he saw his son playing his past boss.  I imagine that was interesting.

Yikes. Brammall has a genetic disease. It's called Prune Belly Syndrome.  It affected Brammall's kidney, liver, and stomach. He wasn't expected to survive.

He's had a lot of surgeries and spent many childhood days in the hospital.

Brammall escaped from the medical stuff with books and movies. I love what Brammall says here. I remember I watched Indiana Jones and wanted to be an archaeologist, then I wanted to be a Ghostbuster,” he says. “At some point I realised I didn’t have to choose just one — I could be all those things if I became an actor.

That's wonderful. Although you can also be many things by watching movies and TV shows and reading books. There's this wonderful post I've seen on Instagram.  I can't really find it, because I can't remember enough words to Google it. But it has someone feeling unhappy because they see characters their age who are going on all these wonderful adventures, and their own life seems blah in comparison. And someone replies that they too were on the adventures.

I'm not giving it justice but just thinking about it makes me have some tears.

I guess the main point in Brammall's quote, and in the post I can barely remember properly, is that imagination makes our lives so much richer.

Despite his dreams and parent's support, Brammall did have a back up plan. He got a degree in law. Having a back-up plan is probably not a bad idea. It's there if your dream career doesn't work out. And if your dream career does work out, the knowledge and experience you gain with the back-up plan path might one day prove valuable. And it doesn't have to be a degree. It could be something like working at a local restaurant.

Brammall has an embarrassing story. He was approached by someone who said he knew him from somewhere. Brammall started naming his television roles and then it ended up the guy went to school with him.  I guess that could have made him look a bit up himself. But it's an honest mistake. It's hard to remember everyone we knew from school.

I was curious about Prune Belly Syndrome, so I took a lot at this medical website.  It sounds quite serious.  Brammall has been lucky career wise but not so lucky health-wise. Although maybe he's healthy compared to other people that have Prune Belly Syndrome. The website says many babies with it are stillborn or die within the first few weeks of life.

Here's Patrick Brammall's Twitter page.  His most recent Tweet was on October 16. It's in response to a Tweet from someone named Adam Zwar. Zwar Tweeted about the recent Patrick Brammall article.  Zwar refers to something about a look that women have in their eyes if they're an Offspring fan. Brammall's Tweet says. Come on Mate, You Know the Look.

A week ago, Brammall had several Retweets about his Little Death movie.

Here's a funny Twitter exchange between Brammall and Laurence Leung.

On October 8, Brammall Tweeted 14 empty tables in the cafe and this couple sits next to my table. I'm so baffled by this I can't focus on anything else. 

Maybe they were semi-stalking him?  Well, I guess that's not really stalking. It would be more like...hovering?  I don't know what's more disturbing, people sitting too close to a celebrity because they want to exploit that "opportunity" or people sitting next to him for no reason.

Maybe they were so deep in their own conversation and their own little world, they didn't pay attention to where they were sitting.

I don't know....

Brammall does a little too much self-promotion via retweeting for my personal taste. It seems most of his posts and replies to other posts are about his own work. I guess, on the bright side, since he worked with others on the projects; in a sense, he's promoting his friends and coworkers as well.

Here's Patrick Brammall's Instagram page.

His most recent post is from a week ago. He's drinking a coffee drink at a cafe with his wife.

Here's a photo of Brammall with Brendan Cowell.

Here's a very cool eye photo.

I think this is Brammall back when he was a little boy.

Here's a cool photo of a black cat. They CAN be photogenic.  Maybe the thing is that black cats can look good on their own but when used in a selfie, they make the human look bad.

Brammall seems to like using photo special effects on people's faces. There are plenty of those kind of posts. Here's one of them.

Now I shall watch the short films.

I'm going to start with Being Carl Williams.

So far, it's pretty interesting. The premise is an actor is doing an interview and he's kidnapped by confused criminals. The actor played a criminal named Carl Williams, and his kidnappers believe he really IS Carl Williams.

I love the monologue at the end. The actor recites one of those phony-bio things that sound so...I don't know how to describe it. Self-righteous maybe? Too good to be true? Maybe perfect to the point of being unappealing.

The next movie I'm going to watch is Shock. This is the one that was a Tropfest winner.

Brammall does a lot of crying in this one. So far, I don't know why he's crying.

There's a girl (at 2:20) that looks like Anna Paquin.

Is it Anna Paquin??

Well, I don't see her on the cast list. The only woman is Helen Dallimore. So maybe it's her.

Once she started talking, she stopped looking like Anna Paquin. Before that, the resemblance was really strong. Kind of freaky.

At the end of the movie, it says it's dedicated to Kyle Sandilands. I don't know if they're being serious, or that's a joke. It might be serious, because the movie is about shock jocks. The whole thing is Brammall is crying, very sad about something. Then he goes on air, and puts on a whole new persona.

There are jobs where people have to do that. They have a shitty morning and then they have to put on their happy talk-show host face.

Well, really...a lot of sad people have to fake happiness at times. How about parents who don't want burden their children with their problems or sadness? Teachers....And some people do it just because they're afraid they'll lose their friends if they're not chipper 24/7.

The next film I'll be watching is Bars and Tone. 

I like that one a lot. I think it's clever. It's about cameramen filming a commercial, and they're not exactly great at their job.

The last film I shall watch tonight is Dave's Dead.

Brammall is Dave in the film. He's not quite dead.

Oh! This is the one with Stefan Dennis.

Well, I'm done with the movie. I liked it a lot. For me, there were some good laugh out loud moments, and it was also somewhat cathartic.

Anyway....I need to start getting ready for bed.

Good night.


Read my novel: The Dead are Online 


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