Peter O’Brien talks about his decades-long friendship with Rebecca Gibney as the pair reunite for Channel 7’s Winter

THEY first starred together in The Flying Doctors in the 1980s and are now reunited in Winter — what is the secret behind Peter O’Brien and Rebecca Gibney’s on-screen chemistry?

THE reunion of Peter O’Brien and Rebecca Gibney on Winter was a long time coming.

The pair starred together in Aussie drama series The Flying Doctors back in the late 1980s — O’Brien as pilot Sam Patterson and Gibney as mechanic Emma Plimpton.

In 1998 they teamed up again for miniseries The Day of the Roses about the Granville train disaster, and were reunited the following year when O’Brien had a guest role on Gibney’s crime drama Halifax f.p.

Boris Osman (Peter O'Brien) and Margaret Warby (Rebecca Gibney) in the television program 'The Day of the Roses.' p/. undated photo. /actors /television

It was another 15 years before the acclaimed actors worked together for last year’s Winter precursor, The Killing Field.

By then, Gibney had starred as beloved mum Julie Rafter in Packed to the Rafters and won a Gold Logie.

Actors Erik Thomson and Rebecca Gibney outside 8 Riverview Street in Concord, Sydney where the Channel Seven (7) TV program 'Packed To The Rafters' is filmed.

O’Brien had bounced between England and Australia, appearing in UK shows including Cardiac Arrest, Queer as Folk, The Bill, and Casualty and in Australia in White Collar Blue, Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities, and Underbelly: The Golden Mile.

Today, with he and Gibney’s Winter reunion complete, O’Brien and wife Miranda Otto are living in Los Angeles as the pair pursue Hollywood acting roles.

In Winter, O’Brien plays Detective Inspector Lachlan McKenzie, who joins Gibney’s Detective Sergeant Eve Winter to help solve the death of a 23-year-old mother, Karly.

STRICTLY EMBARGOED to February 22, 2015 SUNDAY TV GUIDES FIRSTUSE: Peter O'Brien and Rebecca Gibney in Winter. Picture: Supplied by Channel Seven

“Lachlan is a guy who has hit a brick wall,” O’Brien says. “There are things in his life that are unresolved. His professional life has taken over from his personal life.”

McKenzie and Winter have history, having been an item years earlier when McKenzie was a hot young detective. Eve got too close. McKenzie pushed her away and there have been buried emotions ever since.

McKenzie has gone through two marriages, is in a new relationship, but still can’t get over Eve. Will this latest case bring them together again?

“The potential (to become a couple again) is there and the feelings are very much there but are they venturing into territory that is not right?” O’Brien says.

“They are both adults so there is not the sort of irrational, juvenile behaviour that comes with it (potential romance).

“It is tempting sometimes if things have ended badly (with someone) to think ‘if we went down a different path (would things have been different)?”

WINTER, WEDNESDAY, 9PM, SEVEN

Originally published as Peter O’Brien talks about his decades-long friendship with Rebecca Gibney as the pair reunite for Channel 7’s Winter