It isn't every guy who could lose his mother at 15, survive 11 car accidents and do poorly at five different high schools, and still be called lucky.
But actor James Badge Dale is just that - literally.
Not only has the 31-year-old enjoyed a season as Kiefer Sutherland's partner on 24, but he's starring in the stunning miniseries, The Pacific.
Dale (who is called Badge) plays real-life Private First Class Robert "Lucky" Leckie, who fought with the First Marine Division in the blood bath of Guadalcanal.
"It's an honour to play Leckie - for all of us to play any one of these men and to tell the story," he says, "but it is hard to tell the story of a man who was actually there and Leckie had passed away.
"I couldn't talk to him. All I had was his book of memoirs.
"And it's hard to balance what I believe I owe him, what I believe he believed the story was, and honour him," says Dale, on a sunny veranda of a hotel.
Dale came by acting honestly. His mother was actress Anita Morris, his dad dancer-choreographer Grover Dale.
"It was always a family business. Even my grandmother was an actress at one time. It just felt normal to me."
But he was a troubled teen.
"I think I went through some very dark moments growing up dealing with my mother's death, dealing with my own behaviour, my own anger and being in some violent situations.
"And I've made it through the other side," he says.
"At the time I thought it was everybody else's fault but mine. Looking back, it was me.
"I took some time off and got my life together and was lucky enough to land a spot on a hockey team and went off and played hockey for two years in Utah and then British Columbia.
"It was a great two years and that got me a scholarship to a Division 3 school in New York."
He says he turned his life around because he was miserable.
"I realised that nobody is going to do this for me. I need to stand up, pull myself up by my bootstraps, and I need to straighten up and quit blaming everybody else.
"Sometimes you just come to a point where you're ready for a change."
An injury dashed his hockey career, and Dale returned to his first love, acting.
While he was studying and dredging for acting gigs in New York, he worked in construction.
"What I loved about construction is you can do whatever you want. I don't have to put on a nice face. I don't have to talk to people if I don't want.
"Guys are mean. Guys are surly but we have a good time. Now I'm bad at construction, mind you. I can't build anything.
"I'm worried about the people who are living in the houses I built. I was never very good at it," he smiles.
"I'm not good at math. I couldn't read blueprints.
"But I work hard and I carry loads and am very good at demolition, but there was something beautiful at the end of the day, standing on top of the building, watching the sunset - those quiet moments to yourself when you can look around and say, `I've worked hard today.
"I'm dirty, I'm sweaty, I'm tired, but I had something to do with this. I built something'. There's a romanticism to it."
He did wangle an independent film that paid pretty well and planned to take the summer off.
"I'm going to have a wonderful summer and hopefully I'll land another job by the end of summer.' I did this film, Five Days in New York.
Less than a week after the film was over, I was so bored out of my mind I called my boss in construction and said, `I gotta come back, man, I'm so bored'.
"So they let me come back and drive the trucks and knock walls down.
"But I've been really lucky. I think the longest I've gone since then without a job was six months after I got off the show 24."
He was 24 years old and thought that 24 would be the entree to a blooming career.
"Once I got the job on 24 I said, `Now I'm a hirable actor'.
"And I couldn't get a job afterwards ... I remember I was frustrated ...
"I said, `I'm done with Hollywood, life's more important than this. ...
"You're not judging me as a person I'm not going to let you judge me as an actor either'.
"And the moment I made that shift I started working as an actor again."
Dale says he's recovering from the end of a serious relationship.
"Everyone says don't date an actress. If you date someone who's not an actress there's a whole different set of problems.
"Suddenly they're wondering why you're leaving town all the time. ... all of a sudden you have to kiss this other woman' At least with an actor and actress dating each other there's an understanding of the job."
• The final of The Pacific screens on Monday at 8.30pm on ONE.
