Get to Know Alex Russell with These 10 Fun Facts (Exclusive)

Alex Russell is a rising star that you should keep an eye on and we caught up with him to learn some interesting facts about him!

The 29-year-old Aussie actor is best known for his work in the movie Chronicle and he can currently be seen on the big screen in Only the Brave.

Alex is also starring in the new CBS drama S.W.A.T. alongside Shemar Moore, which premiered this week. Catch new episodes on Thursdays at 10/9c!

Here are 10 Fun Facts that Alex shared with us:

• 1. I love singing… classical, musical theatre (My earliest acting experiences were actually musicals), jazz and so forth. I also enjoy tap dancing.
• 2. I love skateboarding and consider it an art form.
• 3. I love rap and enjoy free-styling (though whether or not my free style rap is good varies from effort to effort).
• 4. I can stretch my lips completely around the rim of a beer glass – my party trick. **Insert wisecrack here**
• 5. I have a keloid scar in the shape of a smiley on my arm given to me by my friend Kent Rowe using the scalding metal tip of a cigarette lighter in art class when I was sixteen. … Proud parents.

Click inside to read the rest of the fun facts…

• 6. I was a fat kid.
• 7. I was bullied as a kid (often for being fat or some derivation thereof).
• 8. When I was a toddler, if ever I wanted someone to carry me I would stand in front of them and say, “carry you, carry you!” My Nanna – my Mum’s Mother, the brilliant Joyce O’Driscoll, once told me I couldn’t come to the shops because she would not carry me. “I’ll walk, Nanna, I’ll walk!”

  “You will not!”

  “I will, I’ll walk!”

  “Alright.”

  We got across the street and not much farther than that.

  “Carry YOU, Nanna! Carry YOU!”

  She made me walk.

  I’ve sometimes wondered if I was merely offering to actually carry my Nanna, despite being a tiny child all of three or so and if I didn’t have my words mixed around at all!

• 9. When I was twenty-one and standing on the sidewalk in the Sydney central business district, I found myself in hot pursuit of a thief. With a mild awareness of the midnight launching of a new video game across the street, I suddenly heard fast footsteps and someone calling out something to do with them being robbed. I took off after him, rounded a corner and caught up to him. As he was backing away from me, he broke the game in his hands (I was told later, by some technicality, this made it harder to prove he was guilty). He swung at me and connected. I bear hugged him and used all my weight to get him to the ground, calling out for help. He then bit me. Nearby civilians came to help me keep him there while the police were called. One man who came to my aid was an American police officer on vacation! We held him there. After a while, while trying to escape, he head-butted me. Not cool.

  He was taken into custody. I didn’t press charges. I had just finished drama school and had the most important agency meeting of all the following morning. I showed up with a gigantic black eye and a bite mark on my forearm. The agency and I decided to work together.

  I then got a tetanus shot.

• 10. When I was about fourteen, at musical practice in high school, some older students saw me playing with a hula hoop and dubbed me “R.G.” which stood for “rhythmic gymnast.” This became my nickname in high school for years along with its successor “taf-karg”

  “T.A.F.K.A.R.G.”

  “The Artist Formerly Known As R.G.”