At long last, life has settled down for Justin (James Stewart) and Leah (Ada Nicodemou) on Home And Away. The couple have been through a hellish time in the last year, surviving a harrowing ordeal at the hands of cult Vita Nova. After a long recovery − physically for Justin and mentally for Leah − the fan favourites married in April in a beautiful and miraculously problem-free ceremony.
But is their newfound peace about to be shattered once again?
When Theo (Theo Poulos) makes a grave error at the garage that puts a client’s life at risk, Justin is forced to step in to ameliorate the situation.
“Look, it’s Theo’s fault,” laughs Stewart.
Claudia (Rachael Carpani, McLeod’s Daughters) is furious after Theo’s inattention sees her brakes fail, leaving her with damage to her car and a broken arm.
Justin, Leah and Claudia meet to discuss the next steps, but things quickly get prickly between the two women.
“When Leah and Claudia first met, they just had a fight. They just fought and fought and fought and Claudia hates Leah, Leah hates Claudia,” explains Stewart.
In a desperate bid to save his business − and with Claudia unable to drive herself to work − Justin volunteers himself as her chauffeur to avoid a potential lawsuit. The only problem is, he fails to tell Leah about this arrangement, entangling himself in what Stewart calls “a web of lies”.
“They’re lies, there’s no other way to put it, they’re lies. And I hate that, but Justin makes a mistake, and you know, I’m not Justin, but I love the idea of having to try to learn how to play this and get into this, because it’s awkward.”
Compounding the issue is that Claudia is having problems with her husband and − increasingly − Justin becomes her sounding board.
But Justin’s willingness to aid Claudia is also motivated by her work as a veterans’ counsellor and assistant. Her sense of purpose gives the Summer Bay mechanic pause about his own career.
“He has this moment of, ‘Am I doing enough with my life?’, which is a bit existential. I know that’s a big word for a mechanic,” he laughs.
Stewart says veterans’ affairs is a topic that’s “close to my heart” too.
“My father was a Vietnam veteran, but a lot of those Vietnam boys, when they came back, they weren’t counselled, they weren’t debriefed. You know, you train a man to kill another man for six weeks, but when he comes back, you kind of need to train him how not to do that anymore.”
The actor believes the long-running soap opera excels at raising issues that can prompt a larger conversation.
“Home and Away is good drama.
“It’s not just bikinis and board shorts and people running up the beach and having a burger.
“In our little way, we just sort of show you a scene or a story about a situation and then let the dinner tables all around the world and Australia sort of talk about it amongst themselves.”
Stewart had never worked with Carpani before, but says she has “gorgeous energy on set”.
“She has done such big work and it’s really kudos to the casting agents here, because they get us these guests that just make you lift your game.
“Ada and I loved working with her, they were really great together.”
Stewart and Nicodemou recently made their public debut at the Australian Logie Awards as a couple in real-life. Fans were excited to see one of television’s most popular pairings on the red carpet, with Stewart making their relationship Instagram official by posting a photo of them together with the caption “Crazy Happy”.
Earlier this year, Stewart participated in Dancing With The Stars Australia and finished in a respectable fifth place. Nicodemou has appeared on the show twice before and Stewart says he received a lot of support from his on-screen wife, who encouraged him to give it a go, despite his lack of dance experience.
“It was awesome. It was scary. First four weeks, I looked in the mirror each morning going, ‘what have you done?’
“When I got to the actual show and there were other blokes who were just like me, couldn’t really dance at all, it was so fun. It just became like a locker room in the footy days.
“We were geeing each other up, clapping each other on, just helping each other go out into this furnace in front of those four judges and do the very best that we could − and we had a ball.”