After almost two decades as one of Australia's hardest working character actors, Roy Billing is now enjoying the perks of being instantly recognised as "Aussie Bob".
Billing was cast as crime figure Bob Trimbole in Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities, one of the most successful television dramas in Australian history.
Just as Underbelly series one star Gyton Grantley struggles to shake the Carl Williams tag, Billing said he's been blown away by the reaction to his character.
"It's just been huge, I can't get away from it," Billing told AAP.
"I went to Vietnam a couple of weeks ago to shoot a commercial, and I thought - great four days without Aussie Bob!
"On the plane Vietnamese Australians are wanting photos and autographs. I'm wandering around Saigon and people would suddenly yell out 'hey Bob!'."
Despite having appeared in iconic shows like All Saints, Home & Away, Blue Heelers, Billing said he's never experienced anything like the infamy of being Aussie Bob.
"I've just been a reasonably well known character actor, nothing quite as big as Aussie Bob," he said.
"I thought maybe I won't get any work more because I'm typecast but I'm still getting work.
"It certainly gets you tables at restaurants, and all that stuff. It's all true."
The Aussie Bob tag is a little ironic, considering Billing was born and raised across the Tasman.
He started out his acting career in New Zealand, and his wife is a Kiwi, but he considers Australia home these days.
"I've been living here for 20 years now, I had an Australian grandfather, and I regard myself more Australian than New Zealand," he explained.
"I've got citizenship, and this is home now. It's certainly been good career-wise."
Billing is not short of acting jobs these days.
He appears alongside Paul Hogan and Shane Jacobson in the new road comedy Charlie & Boots, and is currently preparing for a part in the third Chronicles of Narnia movie, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, on the Gold Coast.
Billing said he jumped at the chance to work again with his Strange Bedfellows co-star Hogan and director Dean Murphy.
"They're great guys to work with," he said.
"It's a bit of a no-brainer - hey, do you want to do a movie with Paul Hogan and Shane Jacobson? Yep!"
Billing said he enjoyed playing Roly, a good country bloke with a cheeky sense of humour, but said the bad guys tend to be more fun.
Of all the roles he's played during his career, he names the good side of Aussie Bob as one of the closest to his own personality.
And maybe sometimes a bit of the bad.
"After six months of filming and you're just constantly working on the scripts, suddenly you'll get angry and my wife would say, 'are you Roy now or are you the drug baron?'," he said.
"It's very easy to flip over."
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