Alex Dimitriades

Alex Dimitriades
Dimitriades at the AACTA Awards, 2012
Born	(1973-12-28) 28 December 1973 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1993–present

Alex Dimitriades (born 29 December 1973) is an Australian film and television actor.

Early life

Dimitriades was born in Sydney, as Alexander Dimitriades. He is the son of first generation Greek immigrants, and is the youngest of three siblings. He has a brother, George, and a sister, Melinda. He grew up in Earlwood, a suburb of Sydney.^[1] His parents divorced when he was twelve.^[2] Betty, his mother, worked as a legal secretary. She raised the children solo.

As a student, Dimitriades was suspended from high school for allegations of inappropriate behaviour, which was just a prank taken out of context. In a 2011 interview, Dimitriades said he still believes the only thing that was inappropriate was the punishment.^[3]

Career

Film

Dimitriades began his career in the 1993 Australian film The Heartbreak Kid. He played the protagonist Ari in the Ana Kokkinos film Head On (1998), based on the book Loaded by Christos Tsiolkas. Dimitriades' performance in the role was critically acclaimed and earned him an AFI Award nomination. He played the lead role in "Subterano" in 2000. The film failed to be released commercially and was finally released straight to DVD in 2003. He appeared in the Australian comedies Let's Get Skase (2001) and La Spagnola (2001). He has had roles in the Hollywood films Ghost Ship (2002) and Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo (2005).^[4] He also starred in the Greek film To Gamilio Party (English title Bang Bang Wedding, 2008). In Wog Boy 2: Kings of Mykonos (2010) he stars as Mihali, a smooth talking, immaculately dressed Mykonos mogul. In 2010, he also starred in Summer Coda starring alongside Rachael Taylor. The Infinite Man in 2014.^[5] In 2015, he co-starred in Ruben Guthrie alongside Patrick Brammall.

Television

After making his acting début in the film The Heartbreak Kid, he starred in a television spin-off, Heartbreak High, in which he played Nick Poulos. He went on to play underworld figure, Warren Lanfranchi, in the 1995 drama television series Blue Murder. In 1997, he took on a role in the police drama Wildside.

In 2002, he appeared in Young Lions. In years to follow, he had small guest roles in the Australian soap Neighbours and the science fiction series Farscape. In 2008, Dimitriades played assassin Victor Brincat (known as Mr. T in the show) in TV drama Underbelly.

In 2011, he featured in the TV adaptation of Christos Tsiolkas' novel The Slap. He was awarded the AACTA Award for Best Lead Actor in a Television Drama for his role as the protagonist, Harry. In 2015 he starred in The Principal, a SBS four-part crime drama screened over two weeks in October.^[6]

Theatre

In 1996 and 1997, Dimitriades, along with Nick Giannopoulos and Vince Colosimo, toured as part of the Wogboys comedy stage shows.

Dimitriades has also appeared in many theatre productions, including two plays by Louis Nowra for Griffin Theatre Company, The Woman with Dog's Eyes (2004) and The Emperor of Sydney (2006). He has also starred in The Nightwatchman (2007) and Rain Man in 2010. The Melbourne Theatre Company’s production of Glengarry Glen Ross in 2014.

Personal life

Although not married, he did have an eight-year relationship with Terry Biviano. Biviano used her newly acquired fame from being his girlfriend to launch a designer shoe line. In 2006, an article emerged accusing Alex and another girl of canoodling on a beach. The news was faked, but Biviano pulled the plug on the relationship and immediately started seeing someone else. Newspapers have since reported him being in several relationships with women but none being serious again until 2008.^{[7][8][9][10]} The end of that relationship as well as his grief over his ailing mother was cited by friends as the reasons for his arrest for driving under the influence in 2008. It was reported that he had a blood alcohol reading of .11, more than twice the legal limit in Australia. The charge resulted in the suspension of his driver's licence.^[11][12]

In September 2009, Betty Dimitriades lost her battle with long-time illness. Alex, being very close to his mother, was devastated. He immediately left the filming of "Summer Coda" to be with his family.

Dimitriades, an avid collector of vinyl records, has stated that his love of music started in childhood. He has a passion for both hip hop and dance music. He DJ's professionally across Australia, often referred to as DJ Boogie Monster.^[13][14] Derby Day is a yearly event that he had only ever been one of the opening acts for, but in October 2011, all that changed. Alex was the headline act at the after party for the relaunch of the renovated South Melbourne nightclub, Motel.^[15]

References

External links

• Alex Dimitriades at the Internet Movie Database
• Alex Dimitriades
• Alex Dimitriades interview with Paul Fischer