Aussie actor Matt Passmore stars in surprise hit The Glades.

Aussie actor Matt Passmore stars in surprise hit The Glades.

WHEN Matt Passmore completed his duties as Detective Warwick Mobbs on Underbelly last year, his American agent gave him a firm ultimatum. Unless he began focusing on getting work with the networks, his dream of a career in the US was not going to happen.

A week later, he was on a plane to Los Angeles. One month on, he was in Prague filming the lead in a big-budget series pilot. That the show, Master-work, never made it to air was beside the point. It led to other meetings and eventually the lead role in The Glades, one of the most successful drama series launched this past American summer.

The Glades, like Burn Notice, is filmed around south Florida. Unlike the latter, which is a blue-sky drama focusing on spies, The Glades is a character-based police procedural.

Passmore anchors the series with aplomb, playing the role of Jim Longworth, a Chicago-based detective seeking a clean break. He is transferred to Florida, where he meets and falls for nurse Callie Cargill, who has a husband

in prison.

Thus begins a complicated and compelling love triangle anchored by a case-of-the-week-type murder mystery.

The series was a surprise hit when it made its debut in the US in July last year and recently it began screening locally on Foxtel's W channel.

The series quickly finds its somewhat sardonic voice in early episodes.

"It was a fine line trying to find the lightness of tone with a dark subject matter," Passmore, in Australia for summer holidays, says. "Once we decided to base it around aspects of Floridian culture that are unique to the state, the show truly found its voice."

As the only other major series filmed in the area, Passmore says the show was eager to shake off the comparisons with Burn Notice.

"They show all the beautiful aspects of Florida," he says. "So it's something different for us to show that other side of Florida."

Passmore's character, while not malicious, is certainly comfortable making others uncomfortable.

"His MO is not to piss people off, it's his defence mechanism," Passmore says. "His way of dealing with things as a homicide detective is to make light of the whole thing. He knows that nobody is going to tell him the truth if they are comfortable, so it's that Columbo-esque way of getting everybody's cards on the table and that steps on people's toes."

And Passmore's excellent American accent is also something to behold.

"I've never had a problem with that," he says. "I wanted to get Jim's accent right, because he has a different rhythm to everybody else in Florida."

Passmore lists a mid-season episode called Mucked Up, which follows a murder in a town near Lake Okeechobee, as a watershed moment for The Glades. "These are real towns where there's a population of 2000," he says. "All they have is football. Forty-nine NFL players have come out of the area because these kids have grown up chasing rabbits from the sugar-cane fields. A story like that can only come from Florida."

Passmore grew up in Brisbane, where, he says, saying you wanted to be an actor was akin to saying you'd like to be an astronaut.

So he spent time in the army driving trucks. But the acting bug was persistent. He began doing theatre part-time, was accepted to NIDA and committed himself to acting. As well as a regular gig on Play School, roles in Always Greener, Blue Heelers and a three-year run on McLeod's Daughters followed.

It was there he met his partner, Australian actress Rachael Carpani, who began appearing in a recurring role on The Glades midway through season one.

Passmore will return to Florida in February to begin filming season two. The network is eager for it to be on the air as soon as March, so as not to lose momentum from the first season's success. "I've had some meetings talking about which way we'll take it," he says. "We'll keep mostly the same voice. But the series might go a bit darker."

The Glades screens on Sundays at 8.30pm on Foxtel's W channel.