you’re not involved with
that world. My wife isn’t
comfortable with it, but
she tolerates it.’
Luckily, former teen
sweetheart Cassandra is
an understanding woman
who backed Matt’s risky
career change more
than a decade ago, and
supports his battle
with bipolar disorder.
‘Medication and
exercise keeps me where
I need to be. I need to
take precautions to level
myself out. It’s trial and
error, but being educatedis the big thing,’ explains the
outspoken mental health
advocate, who was diagnosed
in 2012 after years of untreated
depression and hypomania.
‘I used to say I could not live
in the middle. I had the disorder
for a long time before I was
diagnosed. You really do become
very tired of it, but if I didn’t
have bipolar, I wouldn’t be doing
what I am doing today.
‘A lot of the decisions I made
early on in my career didn’t
seem very plausible to thosearound me, but when you have
that disorder... I sort of thought
I could do anything.’
Perhaps he was right! With
encouragement from his mentor,
author Tom Keneally, Matt
turned an unpublished novel
into a screenplay and raised
$1.6 million to finance his firstfilm, The Final Winter, in 2007.
Since then, he’s gone from
strength to strength at home and
in Hollywood, where he’s worked
with screen heavyweights like
Robert De Niro, Clive Owen,
Jason Statham and Vin Diesel.
Locally, his television
highlights include Bikie Wars:
Brothers In Arms, Underbelly:
Badness, Gallipoli and Hyde &
Seek, among others. His latest
role – as Jekyll and Hyde crime
investigator Mark Standen in
Blue Murder: Killer Cop – seeshim embark on a dangerous
liaison with Emma Booth’s
idealistic young policewoman
Julie Weinthall as part of the
Roger ‘The Dodger’ Rogersonstory. But tell Matt he’s become
a sex symbol and he just laughs.
‘I look at myself in the mirror
and that’s not what I see when
I wake up in the morning. “Sex
symbol” is a nice moniker
to have within the
industry if you’re looking
for work, but it’s not how
I think of myself.
‘I have a solid group of
friends and family, and if
I ever remotely looked
like I was taking that idea
on board, it just wouldn’t
be tolerated!’ he says.
Work is important to
this one-time army brat
from Sydney’s Northern
Beaches, who is completing
his fourth novel and plans
to direct his first movie
next year.
But Matt confides:
‘You know, what I do is
not the be all and end all.
Family is what gets me
up in the morning and
keeps me smiling.’
By Jenny Brown‘If I didn’t have bipolar,
I wouldn’t be doing what
I’m doing today’
On-screen
lovers Matt
and Emma
get very
cosy in Blue
Murder.The star
credits wife
Cassandra
for his
success.Blue Murder:
Killer Cop airs
Monday, 8.30pm,
Channel Seven.In character,
Mark and
Julie are
after Roger.KISSING
C OPS
NI33TV EXTRA Blue murder.indd 33 2/8/17 4:22 PM