Remember Ailsa From ‘Home And Away’? We Snooped Through Her Home And Asked Her Some Questions

We teamed up with Media Super, the industry super fund for creative people, to ask some Australian legends about life, creativity, and work after retirement.

–

It’s a shameful personal secret of mine that while I can’t tell you the name of our first ten Prime Ministers, to this day I can whip out immensely trivial points of the lives of a certain bunch of beached-up Aussies beaten down with all the drama soap can lather. Can’t tell you the year the GST was introduced; can tell you where I were when a seemingly paralysed Angel invoked her namesake and miraculously walked down the aisle into Shane’s arms.

Such is the power of televised soaps.

In the land of Home and Away, Ailsa Stewart was a strong maternal bird who survived everything from domestic violence, prison rape, being held up at gun-point, to post-natal-depression and being the aunt of Danni Minogue. She was one of the show’s core characters — but since officially hanging up her diner apron in 2003, Judy Nunn has spent a lot of her time carving out a name for herself outside the sands of Summer Bay, by authoring thirteen successful books.

She let us ask her questions as we snooped around her coastal home in Hardy’s Bay, NSW.

Junkee: Judy, you are basically Australian Soap royalty, appearing on Prisoner, Sons and Daughters, Home and Away, and writing scripts for Neighbours. Do you ever miss the bronze-screen?

Judy Nunn: Bronze screen? A term I’m not familiar with. I suddenly see myself in sepia, most intriguing.

No I don’t miss television at all — as much as I’ve loved the camaraderie and professionalism shared by the wonderful teams of actors and crew I’ve worked with over the years. I am one of those incredibly lucky individuals who has enjoyed every single aspect of my professional life, from acting in the theatre, on radio, on television, and now writing novels.

Do you identify more strongly as a writer than an actor?

One cannot be an actor for as long as I have and simply cease to identify with the craft. There will always be an actor in me, and probably always a role that might tempt.

That said, however, my great passion these days is most certainly as a writer.

You wrote novels throughout your acting career. Was novel writing always the plan, or was it something that took off more organically after you stepped away from acting?

I wrote scripts throughout my acting career, yes, but I didn’t start writing novels until the late-’80s. This was after I’d been in Home and Away for several years and I have to say (at the risk of upsetting some diehard fans) that I embraced the world of fiction because playing the same character for such a long time ceased to stimulate me.

My fellow actors and crew mates always took the mickey out of me, scribbling away on the back of scripts as I did, but by the time I left the show I had five novels published, which at two years for each novel amounted to ten years work.

It also meant that, by the time I left, I had a readership — so how lucky was that!

Does having a high profile career in one artistic profession make it easier or more difficult to establish credibility in another?

Good question. It’s a double-edged sword most definitely. Publishers were queuing up for my first book [The Glitter Game, 1991], which being based in the world of television they presumed to be somewhat ‘kiss and tell’ (although it was really an out-an-out satire). And there was certainly an amazing amount of attendant publicity, which put it straight on the best-seller list.

Several books down the track, however, I found myself regarded as ‘that soap actress who writes’. It took some time to shake off that label – a touch of the tall-poppy syndrome probably.

Where do the characters for your novels come from? Do people from your life turn up in there, unexpectedly?

I think every writer of fiction uses people they know, or at least an amalgamation of those they have known. Searching for the truth in a character, writers will draw upon things they’ve observed, either up close or from afar. People, relationships, behavioural patterns — one is always taking note, or at least I am.

I have the distinct feeling no-one’s really safe when there’s a writer around — or an actor for that matter. Actors constantly observe too, but at least their observations don’t get put in a book.

If they asked you to revive the ghost of Ailsa, would you say yes?

Never. One can be revived as a ghost only so many times.

It was hilarious when they brought the character back from the dead the first time around — my dear mate Ray Meagher and I had a ball — but it would be thoroughly boring for all concerned, not least of all the viewers, to do it again.

You’re about to publish your thirteenth book. Do most people still connect you more strongly with your soap career?

Spirits of the Ghan is my 13th title [in adult fiction; it was preceded by two children’s novels], and actually these days I receive a far greater response from book readers than I do from soap watchers. It hasn’t been ‘G’day Aisle’ as I walk down the street for many years now. It’s been, ‘You’re Judy Nunn, I love your books’, which of course thrills me no end. I mean that. It really does!

Are there any up-and-coming Australian fiction writers you think we should be reading?

Lenny Bartulin who wrote Infamy is one to watch out for, and Ceridwen Dovey whose Only the Animals I absolutely adored. Other recent Australian novels I’ve found fantastic are Richard Flanagan’s Narrow Road to the Deep North, Ml Stedman’s The Light Between Oceans and Joan London’s The Golden Age — although they’re hardly new up-and-comers. Nice to have such Aussie writers of whom we can all be so proud though, isn’t it?

–

Check out Judy Nunn’s books here.

–

Your super is your money – be a tightarse, and don’t leave multiple accounts lying around. Take control of your super and you too can pursue your creative dreams in retirement.