First there were the fluoro tops, pigtails, and imaginary friends. Then the awkward teen years – clandestine pashes behind the bike sheds, inappropriate boyfriends (including one played by Heath Ledger), plenty of angst. And of course that puffy white wedding dress.
No one would blame Kate Ritchie for wanting to slam the door shut on her years spent on Home and Away. Many would understand if she wanted to ”do a Melissa George” and write it off as an embarrassing life experience.
But five years after leaving Summer Bay, Ritchie is returning to the show she starred on for 20 years to reprise her role as Sally Fletcher in a guest stint.
The question is: why ”Look, it sounds really simple, but it was just lovely,” she says. ”It’s a job that I absolutely loved. So it was so nice to be back on set, back on location in a place that I know so well, surrounded by lots of people I’ve known for many years.”
Ritchie admits it was a strange sensation stepping back onto such familiar ground for the first time in five years.
”It was a mixture of feelings,” she says. ”I was excited to be back, but it did feel a little bit strange. I was back on set and, in essence, doing the same job I have done before, but all this time had passed and so much had happened since I left.
”It felt strange. There were so many familiar things about it, but then there was so much about it that was different – perhaps because I was different, and I was seeing things with different eyes.”
Ritchie left Home and Away in 2008. At the time it was a tough decision, but the big, bad world was calling and opportunity knocked. She went on to have mixed success with roles in Underbelly, the short-lived Cops L.A.C., plus a stint co-hosting breakfast radio alongside Merrick and Rosso. She’ll also soon be seen on Peter Helliar’s new ABC series, It’s a Date.
Ritchie admits she was shocked when Home and Away producers came calling once more.
”I received a phone call from my manager one day saying, ‘You’re never going to believe this but I’ve just been on the phone with Home and Away’,” she says. ”I was like, ‘What’ A return was something I had never considered. Not that I didn’t enjoy my time there, it was just that it had been a job that I had finally found the courage to leave, and five years had passed. It caught me off guard, to be honest. I thought, ‘Goodness, what do I think of this’
”Of course the obvious things were, ‘Wow, isn’t it lovely that they would like me to come back’, and ‘Isn’t it great that Home and Away is celebrating 25 years’, which is part of the reason the phone call came,” Ritchie says.
What followed was a period of deliberation. ”I spent a little while thinking about it – probably overthinking it – wondering if a return would be a good idea or a bad idea, and what people would think about it,” Ritchie says.
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”Then I realised that I should stop worrying about everything and just remember that it was a job I loved. And the whole point of working in this industry is that we do continue to work, and it would be crazy for me to decline.”
Unlike many of her contemporaries, Ritchie decided not to up stumps after her exit and move to LA, continuing to base herself in Australia where she lives in Sydney with her husband of three years, Stuart Webb. It wasn’t too much of a stretch, then, to jump in her car and make that familiar drive out to Palm Beach, where Home and Away is filmed.
She figured that instead of distancing herself from Sally, she may as well embrace her – and what better way than a quick trip back to the Bay
”If I had tried to forget her, I wouldn’t be acknowledging a great deal of who I am. Leaving Home and Away, a lot of it was about trying to work out who I was without this character, and without the show, and without the security.
”I’ve realised that you can move on and do other things, but you can still appreciate where you’ve been.”
The opening scenes of her first episode back see Sally ride into town in a convertible, daughter Pippa (Piper Morrissey) in tow.
”There’s a great deal of me in Sally Fletcher, and a great deal of [her] in me. I think there’s nothing I can do about that,” Ritchie says. ”There’s no point me fighting it.”
GROWING UP ON THE BOX
The transition from child star to respected adult actor isn’t something many performers achieve. Kate Ritchie is the exception.
Not only has she managed a career post-Home and Away, she’s actually turned out to be – shock, horror – a normal person.
Ritchie says this may have something to do with her motivations for becoming an actor.
”What I did was a hobby for many years and I did it because I loved it, not because I wanted to work in television,” she explains.
”Nor did I want to be famous. As I kid I wanted to do it because it was fun – and because I got to hang out with Alex Papps [the teen heart-throb, now Play School presenter, who played Frank in the first season].”
Everything since has been a bonus.
”As I’ve grown the things that have unfolded, all the attention and the accolades, they’ve not been something I have sought,” she says.
And the flipside of that fame The constant focus on her personal life, the is-she-isn’t-she speculation of a baby on the way, the analysis of her every move including this one back to Summer Bay that some have said is proof she couldn’t make it anywhere else.
”It doesn’t always sit well with me, but that’s the way it is,” Ritchie says. ”I can either give it a lot of my energy, or I can accept that it’s also part of the job.
”I want to share as much as I possibly can, but I also have no intention of giving everything. I love that the little old lady in the supermarket stops me and grabs my hand and tells me how wonderful it is to see me grow into such a lovely woman. I also love flicking through our wedding book knowing those photos only I and [my husband] Stuart have seen.”
– Sydney Morning Herald
