United Kingdom, Aug. 1 -- Guy Pearce is 'grateful" his 1980s pop career flopped.

The Memento star shot to fame on Australian soap opera Neighbours in the mid-1980s and after leaving the show he followed in the footsteps of his former co-stars Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan by attempting to carve out a career in the music industry, but Guy failed to set the charts on fire as his 1989 single Call of the Wild limped into the Australian singles countdown at number 156 and he was left in the "wilderness".

He told the Guardian newspaper: "After I finished Neighbours, there was a period where people would say: 'Didn't you used to be Mike from Neighbours?'

"Then one day, this 10- or 12-year-old kid came up to me in a shopping centre and said:...