By Ashleigh Fielding | posted on March 29, 2019
LIFE as an actor isn’t always glitz and glamour and red carpets.
Sometimes actors find themselves learning new languages, battling extreme climates of locations and working around the clock to get the perfect shot.
Luckily for ABC’s children television series Itch actor Samuel Ireland, his time spent in front of the camera in Albany was relatively cruisy.
The 21-year-old sat down with The Weekender to give an inside look at what it takes to be a star.
Mr Ireland began life as a “socially inept, very introverted” young man who found passion in drama.
His older sister pursued it in high school and suggested he give it a go.
Always “terrible” at sport, drama gave Mr Ireland a way to embrace his love of stories by “living” inside of them.
“We did Twelfth Night in year 11,” he said.
“At the end, when everyone came out to bow…seeing everyone cheering and knowing it made them happy… that was it for me.
“I wanted to be an actor.”
Mr Ireland attended Curtin University in Perth and pursued theatre studies where he penned his own play about fear and magical realism.
He also nabbed a role in indie film The Light and got a placement at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.
Last year was when he got his “first big gig”.
“When I saw the Itch auditions, I thought, ‘this is my childhood,” Mr Ireland said.
“Blue Water High, Parallax…kids’ dramas are what Aussies do best.
“So getting that first call back was a wonderful feeling.”
Mr Ireland scored the lead in Itch as Itchingham Lofte, a science-minded teen who discovers a new element and must keep it out of harm’s way.
“To land it was pretty crazy,” he said.
“I got the news just before Christmas and I told my mum and girlfriend first.
“It gave me such a head spin.”
Mr Ireland arrived in Albany a couple of months ago for filming and is leaving today.
He said his days have varied but that he has loved every minute of it.
“I generally get up at about 5.30am or 6am,” Mr Ireland said.
“I have to shave everyday, which sucks, and I go over my lines.
“I’m on set at about 7.30am and have breakfast and then get into costume and hair.
“Then it’s go, go, go.”
Naturally brown-haired, Mr Ireland had to have his hair cut and coloured a particular shade of red for his role as Itch.
It took a couple of tries to get it the perfect shade but fortunately, it didn’t have to be re-coloured too often and therefore didn’t lengthen Mr Ireland’s time in the chair.
“A basic day for me is 10 hours but the longest I’ve done was 13 hours,” he said.
“I felt pretty beat after that.”
In his brief few days off work, Mr Ireland visited The Gap, Emu Point, Middleton Beach, Boston Brewery and Greens Pool.
He’d visited Albany was he was younger and enjoyed reminiscing again.
“We went to Bluff Knoll when I was 12,” Mr Ireland said.
“There was a lot of stairs!
“I don’t think anybody told me just how many there were. ”
Itch is set to air on ABC ME early in 2020.