Rising Star: Alex O’Loughlin Of ‘Moonlight’

Friday nights have gotten a lot steamier thanks to the presence of the delectable Alex O’Loughlin, who stars in the new hit show, “Moonlight.”

The Australian 30-something has been heating up the screen for about a month now as Mick St. John, a vampire with a conscience.

Mick was brought into the vampire fold by Shannyn Sossaman’s “Coraline” — a woman who, on their wedding night, cursed him with immortal life.

Rather than continue his perpetual 30-year-old state as a nasty old blood-sucking beast, Mick’s vampire lifestyle was given a twist when he saved the life of a young girl – Beth Turner. Now, as he works as a private investigator, fate brings him together with a grown up Beth (Sophia Myles), and romantic tensions ensue.

It’s thanks to O’Loughlin though, that new fans are flocking to the show as weeks pass. For starters, the one time contender for the role of James Bond (which went to Daniel Craig) is playing a heroic guy, caught up in plenty of action. He’s also involved in plenty of shirtless scenes as Access Hollywood found out when we interviewed the arousing Aussie.

“The stunts are fantastic. We do a lot of our own stunts. I do a lot of my own stunts, [and], um, you know there is more nudity than I have seen on network TV for a while,” O’Loughlin blushed. “There are all sorts of things and everything is quite hard-hitting and cutting edge for CBS, I have to say.”

This isn’t the first time the ripped actor has gone shirtless on film. He stripped down to a lot less for a scene in last season’s “The Shield,” as Detective Kevin Hiatt.

“There was a sex scene in ‘The Shield’ where I was nude – I was fully naked on a chair!” he admitted.

Though he has the physique for such parts, O’Loughlin admits he’d rather keep his clothes on.

“There is nothing fun about doing a scene like that,” he told Access. “I have had to do a couple of them in my career and it is like — it’s just weird and sort of icky.”

Not so “icky” is being an Australian actor in Hollywood these days. O’Loughlin told Access he enjoys having moved to LA only to find a host of his fellow countrymen nearby.

“It’s a big community,” he noted. “We help each other out. When I first moved here I was given numbers to call people who are friends of friends [who showed] me where to rent a car or get a cell phone.”