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All Saints never say die

YOU may remember her from the police drama Young Lions, or from guest appearances on countless other Australian shows—most recently The Secret Life of Us.

But 27-year-old Alexandra Davies will hit our screens this week as a permanent cast member of All Saints, playing the new paramedic Cate McMasters.

It has been a year of out with the old and in with the new for the Seven network drama. Aside from being joined by new cast members, the All Saints team said goodbye to Ward 17 and were introduced to the new high-pressure and frantic world of the ER-style emergency department.

Davies’ first job after graduating from the University of Western Sydney with a Bachelor of Arts in performance was a guest role on All Saints.

But the recent experience of joining an established cast and crew full-time was a little daunting. In the past she has worked on all-new dramas on which everyone was starting fresh.

Her fears were promptly dispelled. “There is just a really down-to-earth energy on the show,” Davies says.

“The thing I love is not having to go to work and work with a whole bunch of drama queens; here (on the All Saints set) there are no egos involved.

“Everyone is there to have a good time and create a quality product.”

Davies’ character Cate becomes existing ambulance officer Scott’s (Conrad Coleby) new partner.

The two have a rocky friendship to begin with and Cate has trouble working out why her colleague distances himself from her.

Davies jokes it could be because her character suffers from verbal diarrhoea.

“She loves a good chat and to get friendly with people,” she says.

“She works in a world where they are constantly reviving bodies and dragging half-dead bodies.

“So she enjoys to party and have a good laugh and she’s very cheeky.”

Comparing the cast to a musical ensemble, Davies says her role brings a specific dynamic to the show.

“A lot of the time you are cast in television because you bring existing qualities which producers know will mix in well. I like to think of a cast as an orchestra—it’s an ensemble of different instruments.

“If everyone played the violin it would get a bit boring, so you have to work out who is the French horn, the violin, the double bass.

“And that’s where I feel my cheeky, kind of fun-natured side fits in well with the show.”

A big Essendon football fan, the boys from All Saints recently invited her to join them on a Sunday afternoon “kicking” session.

“I’ll be the first girl to get involved with them,” says the woman who loves most sports including yoga.

Along with working on episodes for All Saints, the bubbly Davies has been involved with Stealth, a Hollywood film being produced in Australia.

She describes it as a futuristic Top Gun-style film which stars Rob Collins from The Fast and the Furious and Josh Lucas from Sweet Home Alabama.

She plays Lucas’s date and says her role was to highlight the chemistry between the two leads’ roles.

Davies says she enjoyed playing “the other woman” and dressing up as a man-eater.

“It was good fun playing a real vixen-type character because I am not like that in real life. I had to put on long nails and be a bit sassy,” she says.

Before filming for Stealth began, the cast and crew socialised together at dinners and barbecues and Davies says getting to know Lucas over a glass of wine helped her be more intimate with him during their scenes together.

When asked about kissing scenes with the handsome actor, she clammed up and refused to give any details away.

Newly single, Davies says she is quite happy just doing things for herself. “I think unless you are with the right person you may as well be on your way and water your own garden, make yourself happy,” she says.

“Some people come into your life to give you a certain gift for a certain amount of time.

“But I will just be having a bit of fun until Mr Right comes along.”

She says she hopes she will not be an “old mum” and wants to have children in the near future.

“As we women get a little older we have to start thinking about these things,” she says.

“A lot of people are scared about having children. I’ve done a lot in my 27 years and you can still do and see a lot with children even up until they are five years old.”

It is evident this philosophy comes from her own upbringing which involved plenty of international travel because of her parents’ occupations—her mother an operations manager of a worldwide company and her father the director of a children’s charity.

Davies says her mother was an anti-Vietnam War campaigner and is her mentor and the biggest influence on her life.

And with her father in the process of setting up a children’s charity, Million Wishes, Davies intends to use her star status for the good of others. “I think if you are in a fortunate position to help others then why not give up time to do so?” she says.

After going through a difficult period in her life during which she suffered anxiety problems, Davies says she would like to work on programs aimed at preventing suicide.

Bound to soon become a well-known face, Davies says she won’t let it affect her.

“That (fame) is not going to change who I am,” she says.

All Saints, Seven, Tuesday 8.30pm

By Katrina Witham
May 20, 2004
The Courier Mail