Budding actor Hailey Pinto may have grown up in small suburb, but now she is living in an iconic Aussie city and has landed her first paid TV role on Home and Away.
The 23-year-old will step into the shoes of Summer Bay’s newest resident Abigail Fowler and will appear on our screens on August 8.
As the youngest of the Fowler siblings, not much has been revealed about Abigail but one thing for sure is that a whole heap of drama is in store for fans.
“It’s such an incredible opportunity to land, I couldn’t be happier,” Pinto said.
“Abigail is sassy, headstrong, energetic, so she comes to the Bay and has a lot of personal demons to fight and she definitely brings a lot of drama.”
Pinto was born on the other side of the globe in Switzerland while her parents were on a one-year holiday.
“It’s a bit muddled,” Pinto said.
“My mum’s side of the family is all Swiss and my dad is Portuguese.
“They were visiting family for a year and I was born then.”
However, her parents eventually moved Down Under and raised Pinto and her little sister in Redlands, a small city in South East Queensland.
With all her extended family still living in the country famous for cheese and chocolate, Pinto has managed to get back to the mountains at least three times so far.
Joining the core cast of Home and Away on a three-year contract, Pinto is most excited to be hit with a hefty workload as she begins to find her feet as a rising star.
“I was always told the show is such a well-oiled machine and it’s really like boot camp,” she said.
“I just want to start growing and learning.
“It’s my first paid TV audition and I got it unexpectedly.”
Passionate about making up stories from day dot, Pinto explored her love for showbiz through drama classes and acting school which she completed during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Following Home and Away, Pinto has her sights set on big dreams, like any Hollywood hopeful would.
“I’d love to move into film, I want to explore everything, at the moment I’m stuck on these fantasy books I’m reading and I’m obsessed with them, so I’d love to play in that genre,” she said.
Pinto left her fellow emerging actors with some wise advice.
“Get to know yourself first, you’ll find a lot of answers to your acting questions within yourself.”