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Alex O’Loughlin stakes a claim to ‘Moonlight’s’ classical roots

Australian actor Alex O’Loughlin, star of CBS’ vampire drama “Moonlight” (Fridays at 9 p.m. on WBZ, Ch. 4), sat on the set on a March evening at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, Calif. – and enjoyed the view.

He wasn’t looking at his co-star, lovely British actress Sophia Myles, who plays his human love interest, Beth.

He was looking at a silver sports car up on a rig for the night’s filming.

“I love the car,” he said. “Oh, my God. I don’t (get to drive it), actually. I would very much like to. It’s an Audi R8. (It’s got) 500 horsepower, turbocharged V-8. It’s pretty fantastic.”

After some further chat about cars and motorcycles (which included a brief primer on Spokey Dokes, apparently a popular bicycle-spoke accessory), the conversation drifted to O’Loughlin’s classical education and what that has to do with playing Mick St. John, a vampire private eye in Los Angeles.

Naming “Hamlet” as his favorite Shakespeare play, O’Loughlin made parallels between Mick and the indecisive Dane.

“There’s absolutely a little Hamlet in Mick. Don’t worry about that. There absolutely is, in the loss of his family, the ‘to be or not to be.’ There’s a lot of Hamlet in there.”

As to who is the equivalent of the ghost of Hamlet’s murdered father, which haunts him in the castle parapets, O’Loughlin suggested Coraline (Shannyn Sossamon), the vampire who seduced the then-human Mick, then turned him into a creature of the night.

“Coraline is the ghost,” he said.

Then he thought of Josef (Jason Dohring), the young-looking but very old vampire who is Mick’s best pal.

“Josef may be Horatio . . . you know what, hey! Josef is not as reflective as Horatio. This is interesting. I wonder if Shakespeare is turning in his grave that we’re drawing conclusions.”

O’Loughlin also linked “Moonlight” to another Shakespeare tragedy.

“I think there’s a lot of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ in it,” he said. “The fans are like, ‘When are Mick and Beth going to (have sex)?’ I’m like, ‘Hang on a minute: It’s going to be another show. It’s really going to shift the dynamic of the show if those two consummate their love at that level.’ ”

He added, “I’m not the showrunner, but I don’t think we’ve earned it yet.”

Fans love the relationship and many of them have made music videos featuring Mick and Beth.

“I’ve seen lots of them on YouTube,” Myles said. “It’s really lovely. . . . When an audience falls in love with a couple, it’s so much more powerful than falling in love with an individual character.”

From “Dracula” to “Angel,” each vampire movie or show re-creates the vampire legend and its rules. “Moonlight” has some rules of its own.

Myles said, “In the makeup van, they’ve got a list of vamp things, and it says, under ‘Sex With Vampires,’ that vampires can have sex and orgasms, but they can’t procreate. So that puts a whole new spin on things. Now that I know that, well, what’s the problem?”