EXCLUSIVE: Tammin played Dani Sutherland on the iconic Aussie soap for four years, and 20 years later has revisited one of Dani’s controversial storylines.
Aussie actress Tammin Sursok has spoken to Yahoo Lifestyle about one of her most famous Home and Away storylines from the ’00s, after she revealed that she never realised what an impact her character Dani Sutherland played for young fans of the show growing up in that era.
The actress and podcast host may have departed Summer Bay in 2004, but Dani Sutherland made her impact on the show with her extended family drama, romances with characters such as Will Smith, Josh West, and Scott Hunter, and that time she was sent to prison for attempted murder (more on that in a second).
Since departing Home and Away, Tammin has worn a lot of hats: she’s had a successful music career, appeared in shows like Hannah Montana and The Young and the Restless, played Jenna Marshall in cult teen show Pretty Little Liars, gotten married, had two daughters, and is now hosting her own podcast The Sh!t Show with Tammin Sursok.
In a chat with Yahoo Lifestyle, Tammin talked about her time on Home and Away and the iconic era that was Summer Bay in the ’00s… as well as touching upon one of the most controversial storylines she had to play as Dani Sutherland.
CW: The following article discusses sexual assault.
Tammin Sursok on Dani Sutherland’s enduring popularity
When asked if she was surprised people still reference her Home and Away character 20 years later, Tammin said she heard of a recent Logies interview where people were asked which Home and Away character they’d have back with “four out of 12” people interviewed mentioning Dani.
“I was like, oh my goodness, I did not know that I made an impact or the character made an impact until I see those things and I go wow, like people did really love that time period of Home and Away,” she said. “I think that these characters really became a part of people’s families, like, they knew them so well.”
Tammin addresses controversial Dani and Kane Home and Away storyline
The Sutherland family were involved in many dramatic storylines on the soap, but perhaps not all as dramatic as the time Dani was sexually assaulted, only for her sister Kirsty to later fall in love with her rapist Kane Philips.
Speaking on the controversial storyline, Tammin told Yahoo Lifestyle that the storyline was ‘not great’.
“What I thought was difficult was we reshot that entire two weeks because I gave too much of a realistic performance,” Tammin said. “Because it was too realistic, I think they thought it wasn’t for the specific timeslot so I had to go back and reshoot it, and that was really difficult for me.”
“It was the first time in my career I realised that it doesn’t matter if you think you’re good, it has to matter for the whole of the system. And sometimes what you want, isn’t going to be what they show,” Tammin said. “And that’s sometimes difficult as an actor, because you do scenes and you feel like you’ve killed it, and you watch the TV show back and you don’t even remember even shooting that crappy take used.
“I’m not saying it was crappy, but it was hard to put something out there that I wasn’t as proud of,” she explained further. “I thought the storyline was interesting, again we were able to open up topics about sexual assault, and I think we were kind of the pioneers of that.”
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