Harrow’s hunky star Ioan Gruffudd reveals his love of Brisbane

Ioan Gruffud, star of Harrow, reveals how relaxed and comfortable he is in our River City as shoots the popular ABC series’ second season. Amy Price reports

IT MIGHT seem strange that a Hollywood actor like Ioan Gruffudd would leave his life and family in Los Angeles each year to spend six months filming a TV series in the comparatively sleepy Brisbane.

But from the moment the Welsh actor arrived on set of ABC crime drama Harrow, he knew he was in the right place.

ABC crime drama Harrow returns for a second season on May 12

“Pete McLennan, the first AD (assistant director) on the first day when I arrived on set – it was all very, I suppose, like a movie star arriving, the car drove up and I open the door straight onto set – and instead of ‘yes, Mr Gruffudd you’ll be over here’, it was a ‘OK, Yo-yo, we’ve got you over here’,” he quips in a near perfect Australian accent, which he proudly admits is “coming along”.

Ioan Gruffudd as Dr Daniel Harrow in season two of ABC crime drama Harrow.

“And that was it. From day one, scene one, it stuck. I was Yo-yo. It was only my dad really that called me Yo-yo when I was younger. And I love it. It’s fabulous. I think it’s a way of putting everyone on the same level and treating everyone the same.”

Gruffudd, as unorthodox forensic pathologist with a dry wit Dr Daniel Harrow, leads the Australian cast of the ABC series, which includes Brisbane’s Remi Hii, Darren Gilshenan, Damien Garvey and Jolene Anderson.

When it came time to return for a second season in late 2018 after the success of the first – being sold to Hulu in the US and Alibi in the UK – there was no hesitation for Gruffudd, 45 who knows how rare it is to enjoy a project as much as he does Harrow. “It is such a great show, fantastically written, great characters, great part of the world, great actors. Just trying to tell people who might have less experience than me … I just say ‘look, it’s never going to be this good’,” he gushes to Insight. “It’s so rare, so I was so glad to come back even though it’s torturous on one level.”

Ioan Gruffudd as Dr Daniel Harrow and Jolene Anderson in season two of ABC crime drama Harrow

We have just arrived back at his trailer, parked on the perimeter of the Toowong Cemetery, where a crucial scene for season two is being filmed. Gruffudd is covered in grime after spending hours in the cemetery in 39 degree heat – it’s the hottest March day in Brisbane in 12 years.

He courteously opens and closes my car door and invites me into the trailer, where he offers a glass of water. During the first season he’d ended up in the Royal Brisbane Hospital after sitting in this kind of heat while watching a Test match at the Gabba, but he tells me he’s carried that lesson with him and loves the heat now.

At this point, he’s been living in Brisbane for five months – making his home in a luxury apartment in Fortitude Valley – filming season two, with a Christmas hiatus back in LA and another round trip to visit his wife Alice Evans, a fellow actor he met filming 102 Dalmatians (2000), and their two daughters Ella, 9, and Elsie, 5. They were breaks he built into his contract this season to make the lengthy time away more bearable.

Left to right, actor Chris Evans with Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba and Michael Chiklis in scene from film ''Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer''.

“It’s frustrating for (Alice) as well not having me there because the girls they don’t feel like there’s a normal life, whatever a normal life is. It’s not what they are used to, not having their father there,” he says.

At 6am he Skype calls Alice while she eats lunch in LA, and when he’s on his lunch break he chats to his daughters, who have just arrived home from school. That, he says, has become their normal.

He searches for his Australian phone to show his lock screen but can’t seem to find it and, worried he’s lost it in the cemetery, he proceeds to turn out his pockets and call for his personal assistant. No matter, he describes it: an image of a female soldier hugging her child after a nine-month tour.

Damien Garvey and Ioan Gruffudd in season two of ABC crime drama Harrow

“I have that on my phone to remind me ‘yes, it kills you to be away from your family, it’s killing them too, but there’s people in circumstances worse than yours’,” he says.

“It’s a very strange nomadic existence being away like that. But I feel very relaxed and comfortable here. The people at the coffee shop and my favourite restaurant Tartufo (at The Emporium), they are like my second family, whenever I’m in there they welcome me and look after me. I’m often on my own sitting at the bar like a sad oaf.”

Harrow is a project between Disney-owned ABC Studios International and Brisbane production house Hoodlum and follows Dr Harrow, a senior medical examiner at the fictional Queensland Institute of Forensic Medicine, filmed at the old Dental College on Turbot St in the CBD.

The audience follows a new case each episode while also in season two they will uncover the mystery assailant who shot Harrow on his boat on the Brisbane River in the finale of season one and continues to terrorise him. The 10-part second season was filmed across 34 locations in southeast Queensland.

Harrow hits Brisbane streets to film second season

When filming wrapped in April, Gruffudd had to quickly jet to London to film the second season of British TV series Liar, but he’s already committed to returning for another six months in Brisbane should a third season go ahead. “It’s a beautiful show. As long as Stephen M Irwin is writing the show alongside Leigh McGrath, then I’d love to come back always – as much of a trauma as it is to my family and myself,” he says.

“Being an actor there’s not a lot of (job security) ... now I’m in my 40s I sort of think, ‘wow, I’m still doing this and I’m getting great opportunities to do it on a high level’, and I’ve never been more grateful for that in my life.”

Harrow returns to the ABC on Sunday at 8:40pm.

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