It was a “no-brainer” for Bob Morley to accept a role in the new drama Love Me, which is filming in Melbourne. Bob had not visited his family in country Victoria in three years, as he lives in Los Angeles with his Australian actress wife Eliza Taylor.
“Unfortunately for me, Melbourne shut down as soon as I landed in Sydney, so I didn’t get to see family,” he tells TV WEEK from his home in Los Angeles. “Before I got on the plane back to Los Angeles, I got to see them for a couple of hours.”
“However, with the riots and the earthquake, Melbourne was pretty wild.” It was as if I were in Los Angeles!”
Bob, then known as Bobby, made his television debut as bad boy Drew Curtis on Home And Away more than 15 years ago.
When he returns to Australia, he’s still known as Drew, thanks to the performance, which earned him followers and a TV WEEK Logie nomination. However, Bob, who was 21 at the time, struggled to cope with his unexpected celebrity.
“The loss of anonymity was really tough for me to absorb,” he says.
Bob had a lot more fun playing Aidan Foster on Neighbours after a few more years of experience. He’s proud of the fact that he was the show’s first homosexual couple.
“Aidan was simply a lovely portrayal of a man at ease in his own skin. So it was an honour for me to be a part of it.”
Bob is best known in the United States for seven seasons as Bellamy Blake in the post-apocalyptic thriller The 100, opposing ex-Neighbours actress Eliza as Clarke Griffin. When Bellamy died in 2020, halfway through the show’s last season, fans were distraught.
Bob admits, “I had asked some time off for my own mental health.”
“It’s something I’ve worked on my whole life, but it got to a point where I felt I needed to prioritise my health over my profession. It took me some time to get over the guilt of not finishing the narrative the way I thought it should have been for Bellamy, but I knew I had to do it, and I was fortunate that my wife Eliza was really supportive and helped me get through it.”
Fans who were wanting to see Bellamy and Clarke get together on the programme will be relieved to learn that Bob and Eliza are happily married in real life.
“We’re overjoyed,” he says. “I’m completely enamoured with her.”
When Bob and Eliza first started on The 100, they were two Aussies on their first major American show, and they made a deal to support each other.
“For all those years, it was like working with my closest buddy. Then it grew into something else, which is really great.”
In terms of work, the 18 months after the release of COVID were “a big question mark” for the pair. They did, however, have each other.
“We constructed a lot of Lego, played a lot of Yahtzee and Uno, and watched a lot of TV shows, but we’ve come out stronger as a result of it.”
Bob plays Peter, a successful model who he characterises as “daunting” in Love Me.
“I tried to get in shape, but then you’re in quarantine for two weeks and can’t really do anything.”
Bob enjoys the fact that Peter has a 15-year-old kid, which allows him to practise being a father.
He laughs, “That’s the first time I’ve gone on set and wasn’t part of the youthful bunch.” “I’m delighted I’ve been given the opportunity to take on a more mature position.”
Bob is now hoping for a second season of Love Me so that he may return to Australia and continue working on it.
“If there was, I’d be overjoyed. We’ll have to wait and see what happens.”
