After spending a good chunk of the past decade living and working in Los Angeles, Rachael Carpani has finally returned home. And there couldn’t be a more fitting show for what she’s calling her homecoming role than long-running Australian drama Home And Away.
“I feel it’s something of a full-circle moment for me,” Rachael 43, tells TV WEEK. “I started out on an iconic Australian show [McLeod’s Daughters], I did my stint overseas, and now I’m back home and on an iconic show – I feel very, very lucky.”
The star adds that her appearance in Home And Away has been more than 20 years in the making.
“Not that they’ve been offering me roles for that long,” she explains with a laugh, “but the idea has popped up ever since McLeod’s finished. I think I was waiting for the right time, and the right role.
“So when this character landed on my agent’s desk, she called me and the first words to come out of her mouth were, ‘You have to say yes.’ And after reading more and realising the depth of the character, and how well written it was, especially for a guest role, I called back and accepted it that same day.”
Rachael plays strong-willed businesswoman Claudia, who this week crashes into Summer Bay – quite literally – when she’s involved in an accident caused by her car’s faulty brakes. Injured and irate, she seeks recompense from the mechanic who had only just serviced her car: Justin (James Stewart).
And so begins a narrative that Rachael teases is set to really “shake up the Bay” and will show viewers she’s more than the sweet blonde Jodi Fountain from McLeod’s.
“I think when Australians think about me as an actor, it’s playing those sweet, doe-eyed characters – which is so funny, because it’s not really me,” she says, adding that for a long while after the drama ended in 2009, she wanted to play against type.
“I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t say there were a few years where I deliberately tried to distance myself from it,” she says. “Not that I didn’t love that show – I’m so thankful for it – but that’s why I went overseas.
“There are shows I did over there [in the US] that were villainous [roles], but when the show did make it to Australia, they were either buried in some streaming service or not promoted.
“So when I heard what Claudia gets up to, I thought, ‘Oh, it might be nice to be disliked as a character for a while.’ I’m a little worried about the hardcore fans, though. Hopefully, I won’t get too many people stopping me and asking, ‘How could you do that?’”
After working in the US for more than a decade, appearing in shows such as NCIS: Los Angeles and Flowers In The Attic, as well as Hollywood films like The Very Excellent Mr. Dundee and The Way Back, starring Ben Affleck, Rachael certainly knows her way around a set.
However, she admits she wasn’t prepared for just how much work goes into the making of Home And Away.
“I assumed I’d just slip in, do my thing, not rock the boat and take up too many people’s time,” she says. “And I thought I had experience – I’ve been doing this [acting] for over 20 years. But it seriously knocked me on my butt. I was like, ‘Wow, I’m not as mentally ready as I thought I was.’ It was overwhelming.”
She enthuses that, despite the workload, she’s “not been on a more kinder, more welcoming set.”
“I kept thinking, ‘Are you guys really this nice to everyone?’ I’m not sure I would have been [as nice] in my twenties, when I was working on a show full-time and was running on no sleep and was exhausted.
“I remember asking Ada [Nicodemou, who plays Leah], ‘How do you have time to sleep, let alone prep for this?’ and she had such an incredibly upbeat attitude.”
Rachael’s role in H&A is a guest one for now – and she says “never say never” should she be asked to return – but the Bay could have to wait a while, with the actress teasing that a return to Drover’s Run may come first.
“There’s something in the works,” she says of the rumoured McLeod’s Daughters reboot. “I’m not sure reboot is the right word, and I don’t think it’s a sequel given how many character deaths there were after I left. It could be more of a prequel, but that’s just my opinion.
“Posie Graeme-Evans [McLeod’s creator and writer] likes to keep her cards very close to her chest, as she should, but it’s exciting.”