'It was so difficult': Actor reveals challenging aftermath of playing Muriel's groom

Fans of the 1994 Australian classic Muriel's Wedding will no doubt remember this face.

David Van Arkle was the hunky South African swimmer who became Muriel's short-lived husband in the iconic film.

David was played by actor Daniel Lapaine, who made his film debut in the comedy classic.

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While he played a South African in the movie, his accent was totally fake: Lapaine is from Sydney.

Before landing this role, Lapaine had experienced the Aussie actor rite of passage and appeared on Home And Away in 1989.

He also starred in two episodes of A Country Practice in 1993.

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After suddenly becoming a '90s heartthrob overnight, Lapaine tried his hand at Hollywood.

Lapaine knew he had a chance after seeing the insane popularity of the Australian film, which he starred in alongside Toni Collette.

"I'm very proud of that film, but we had no idea how big it would be," Lapaine told The Sydney Morning Herald in 2006.

Lapaine said he realised the film was making waves when his co-star Collette jetted off to Cannes Film Festival.

At the time, he was back home performing in a production of King Lear.

"She was swanning up the red carpet and doing the parties whilst I was sweating it out at the play's Parramatta season, attempting to keep high school students awake," he revealed.

He'd hit the jackpot with Muriel's Wedding but it wasn't so easy to score major roles.

The actor admitted years later that the character of David left him pigeonholed as an artist.

"It was so difficult to change perceptions," he said in the same interview.

In the '90s, Lapaine went on to start in films including Elephant Juice and Double Jeopardy.

Some of his biggest roles post-Muriel are his role in Zero Dark Thirty and he played Neil Armstrong in the 2009 British film Moonshot.

He also appeared in two episodes of Black Mirror and in the 2022 series A Spy Among Friends.

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Outside of his career, Lapaine married English actress and TV host Fay Ripley. The pair have two children: A daughter, Parker, and a son named Sonny.

It's been 32 years since he burst onto the scene as the hunky Olympian David and Lapaine is now living a quiet life in London with his family.

Now aged 54, he regularly stars in theatre productions including most recently The Merchant of Venice at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.

He has recently appeared on screen opposite Catherine Tate in the series Queen of Oz, in the video game Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, and on Safe Harbour.

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