Interview with Caleb Ross (Lex)

C9: How you doing Caleb? C: Good. Yourself? C9: Not bad. Hey look, heaps of questions have come in from fans all over the world so we’re just going to wade our way through those and the first one is how much is Caleb like Lex? C: Well, hopefully not a lot. There’s bound to be a tiny wee incy bit of me in there somewhere but the majority of Lex is a completely different person. C9: Now some of the story lines that you’ve had to deal with have been a bit full on. Like the rape attempt, throwing Zoot off the balcony and other things, how do you find being the nastiest Tribe member? C: I enjoy it actually. I like it a lot. Some of the story lines, as you say, have been a bit full on but I mean it’s something you have to deal with and you just have to distance yourself from the character and what you’re doing with the character. More to protect yourself than anything else. C9: Do you have a say in what Lex wears? C: The wardrobe; they’re really great. They’ll listen to what you say. They wont just give you something and say ‘This is it’ no matter what. They’re really receptive and they’ll take onboard your ideas. Recently I got a costume changed. A lot because it was just too hot and it was coming into summer here and I was too hot in my other costume and I was sweating and I was getting really uncomfortable, so yeah we have a say. C9: Do you ever wish you weren’t an actor? C: No. C9: If you couldn’t be an actor what would you want to be? C: Probably a musician. C9: Have you ever been to the UK? C: Yes. C9: And what did you think of it while you were there? C: Loved it: C9: What did you go for? C: Went for promotion of ‘The Tribe’. C9: And who else went with you? C: Meryl and Dwayne. C9: How well do you get on with the rest of the cast? C: Very good actually. We all get on really, really well. C9: Do you have a best friend in the cast? C: Me and Dwayne get on really well, but no I get on with all of them pretty well. C9: What’s the best thing about being on ‘The Tribe’ for you? C: It’s doing what I love doing. I’m enjoying it so much and I’m with the best bunch of people I could possibly ask for. I’ve made a lot of great friends. Both, production crew and cast. C9: If you could write a story line for Lex, what would it be? C: Story line for Lex? Ah… C9: Would he be nasty or would he be better? C: He’d be absolutely horrible. (laughs) He’d…I don’t know. He’d destroy the world. I know he’d do something really bad. Maybe get rid of the Mall Rats once and for all and start his own tribe. C9: Now with the Tribe members you’ve done a fair bit of your fair share of kissing… C: Uh huh. C9: Do you know how many of the girls you’ve kissed? C: I’ll go through names. There’s been Tai-San, Zandra, Ebony, Alice… I’m sure there’s more than that. C9: Salene? C: Salene. No, no, I never did kiss Salene. C9: What’s it like acting in a show that’s seen all around the world and playing the bad guy? C: At the moment it’s not so bad over here in New Zealand. New Zealander’s are a bit more relaxed about that sort and it’s only just recently started showing. I’m not sure how it would be taken overseas. C9: If you could be a different character in ‘The Tribe’, who would you like to be? C: I’ve never really played a good guy before so Bray would be an interesting challenge. C9: When you’re on set, who do you hang out with? C: It all depends on the scene really. There’s some scenes where there’s only two people so you don’t really have a lot of choice but we all make jokes. There’s a whole pile of us who all go back to the furniture room between shots, when they set it up, and we all have a laugh and tell a few stories so it’s not really singled out at all. C9: What do you think of it when you do get to sit down and see an episode? C: Pretty critical. C9: Do you ever look at it and go ‘Oh, I could have played that differently’? C: Constantly. I think every actor will do it and I don’t think you can ever be fully happy with a performance and I’m constantly looking back on things and saying ‘Man I wish I could do that again now because I know I could just do so much more a better job’. C9: How do you think you would cope if today the virus hit in real life? C: Personally I think I’d cope okay. I mean, I know it’d be a chaotic situation and the world would just go nuts. I’d try and make the best of it. C9: Do you ever date cast members? C: No. It’s not the thing to do in a professional environment. C9: What’s your favourite story line been so far in ‘The Tribe’? C: Actually my character’s on an amazing roller-coaster and the story line that he took off on was one of my favourite. Probably because I played him though. When he became a drunk and a wreck and he went just nuts and he lost it and he lost it and that was a lot of fun. C9: When he went off on his drunken behavior, does it sort of take you somewhere that you don’t want to be? C: Yeah. Yeah in a way. He did a few things that I wouldn’t be proud of if I was him. C9: Fun to play but you wouldn’t want to be there. C: Yeah. C9: Who was the first person you met when you first arrived in Wellington for filming? C: The first person I met was Mark Thomson. He was a cast driver. First cast person I met was Beth Allen. C9: Do you ever get nervous when you’re acting? C: Yup. I get nervous. I play on my nerves and I use them because being nervous helps add to your performance. C9: Is there a certain type of scene that makes you more nervous. C: Yeah. Really intense scenes can make you get a bit. You know when you’ve got to go really nuts at somebody. C9: Okay now we’ve got a couple of personal Caleb questions to finish off on. C: Personal Caleb questions? C9: So brace yourself. Who was the first person you kissed. C: Ever? C9: Yeah. C: Are we talking full on kiss? Or just a little peck? C9: Well, you tell us. C: Okay, I remember her name was Catherine. Nickname ‘Gubby’. I hope she never ever hears this (laughs) and I got dared to kiss her. C9: And what do you look for in a girl? C: I like personality. I know everybody’s probably just thinking I’m just saying that but no, it’s the truth. C9: Well thanks for joining us on Tribeworld. C: Not a problem.