CRAIG McLachlan has a very impressive acting resume.
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He has appeared on both Australian and American television in Neighbours, Home and Away, The Young Doctors, McLeod's Daughters, NCIS Los Angeles, and more recently,Packed to the Rafters as ageing rocker Steve Wilson.
He has played real life characters Michael Chamberlain and Stuart Diver in TV mini-series, and appeared alongside Catherine Zeta-Jones and Omar Sharif on the big screen in Catherine The Great.
On stage, he has played iconic characters Danny Zuko, Frankenfurter, Caractus Potts and Chicago's Billy Flynn.
But he still always hoped one day a role like Doctor Lucien Blake would come along.
"On Neighbours, Kylie (Minogue) and I were the brother and sister, the two golden, curly-haired kids," McLachlan said.
But, he said, while it's flattering he is still being offered those curly haired roles in his late 40s, he wanted something "a little meatier, with a little more weight and more complex".
McLachlan said he saw a very early copy of a The Doctor Blake Mysteries script and thought it was "bloody terrific", but knew his golden haired image could hamper his prospects.
Working in Los Angeles at the time, a weather-beaten, sunburnt and bearded McLachlan sent back an audition on his iPhone that won over series creator George Adams.
"I just felt so strongly about the integrity of the project."
He also loves filming in Ballarat.
"We were filming at the town hall the other day, and film crews can be disruptive, but the good folk of Ballarat are so up for this.
"It's a lovely thing to come to a town or a city and be so supported."
McLachlan said he was also constantly surprised by how often he was still recognised as young larrikin Henry from Neighbours, a role he played in the 1980s.
"I forget how phenomenally successful Neighbours has been."
Creator and producer Adams agreed he enjoyed filming in Ballarat.
"Personally, I really like this town. I like working in the country. People are much less inclined to be defensive about a film crew coming in," Mr Adams said.
"And now 15 million people across the world are seeing Ballarat (and) hopefully people are getting to know Ballarat.
"I like that it's a city built on blood, sweat and tears. It has a real European feel to it, like a Manchester, or a Glasgow or Belfast."
Mr Adams said he first came to Ballarat to work on Sovereign Hill's Trapped project in 2008 and thought it would be the perfect setting for a 1950s drama.
He said it took about nine days to film each episode, with about seven or eight minutes of actual film shot in a day.
When asked about a series three of The Doctor Blake Mysteries, Mr Adams grinned and said it wasn't his call.
But, he said they just hoped they kept delivering the numbers series one did.
Adams was also an executive producer on one of the most successful Australian horror movies of all time, Wolf Creek.
"I read the script for Wolf Creek and I really liked it."
He said the movie was made for just $1.2 million but "the rest was history".
"I think it was just a really interesting story. It was not something that had happened in Australia for a long time."
Adams also worked on the Scottish drama Hamish MacBeth and other episodic TV in England before moving to Australia for his then wife.
"We had two young people and I just thought this was a better place to bring up kids."
fiona.henderson@fairfaxmedia.com.au