‘Neighbours’ Hits Freevee: 12 Stars Who Got a Start on the Aussie Soap
If there’s an Australian star who has hit it big in Hollywood, chances are good that they started out on a soap opera Down Under — and that Neighbours was that soap. Many of those celebs have Jan Russ to thank: She’s the one who managed the show’s casting from its 1985 debut until 2009.
“Margot Robbie, when she was walking towards me into my office, I thought, this girl’s got something,” Russ told the Australian Associated Press in 2022, when Neighbours was leaving Aussie airwaves after 37 years. “The Hemsworth boys, Chris and Liam, they all had something that caught my eye.”
Russ also gave pop star Kylie Minogue her big break. “She was so quiet, like a little mouse, and I put her in front of the camera and looked at the monitor and I went, ‘Oh my God, that’s an incredible change there,’” the casting agent recalled. “You have to look beyond a pretty face and whether they can walk and talk and not fall over the furniture.”
Now, Neighbours has a chance to bring more talent into the spotlight. A little more than a year after what was its series finale, the soap is making a comeback on Freevee, with all-new episodes debuting on September 18. So to celebrate fans’ return to Ramsay Street, here’s a collection of Neighbours actors who went on to international stardom.
Neighbours, Amazon Freevee
Russell Crowe
Bella Heathcote
She’s now better known for her roles in the TV shows Strange Angel and Pieces of Her, but Heathcote recurred as Neighbours mean girl Amanda Fowler in 2009. “As far as a role on Neighbours goes, that was a winner, getting to play the absolute bitch,” she told Daily Mail Australia in 2020.
Chris & Liam Hemsworth
Chris, best known as Thor from Marvel movies, played auto shop worker Jamie Kane in a sole 2022 episode of Neighbours. Younger brother Liam, the Hunger Games actor soon to lead The Witcher, played athlete Josh Taylor on the show between 2007 and 2008.
Adelaide Kane
Now starring on Grey’s Anatomy, Kane played rebellious teen Lolly Allen in nearly four dozen episodes of Neighbours in 2007. She and costar Sam Clark won a nationwide talent search, beating out thousands others who applied to become new cast members on the show.
John Harlan Kim
This alum of The Librarians and 9-1-1 recurred on Neighbours from 2009 to 2011 in the role of Dale “Macca” McGregor, a troublemaking student with questionable style choices. “I’ll forever be grateful for the opportunity to cut my teeth,” Kim tweeted in 2022, reflecting on the experience. “Not as grateful for all the evidence of my Asian mullet and street rat jewelry.”
Ben Mendelsohn
Long before he joined the Star Wars galaxy and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Mendelsohn appeared on Neighbours from 1986 to 1987. He portrayed Warren Murphy, a drunkard who comes between Charlene Mitchell (Minogue) and Scott Robinson (Jason Donovan). “It’s a f—king behemoth is what it is!” he said of Neighbours in a 2014 interview with The Guardian. “Ramsay Street deserves respect.”
Kylie Minogue
Speaking of Minogue, the “Padam Padam” singer starred as Charlene, a student-turned-mechanic, on the show between 1986 and 1988. She and Jason Donovan, her real-life ex-boyfriend, returned for Neighbours’ presumed finale last year. “It was lovely, emotional,” she told Australia’s Today at the time. “Driving into Ramsay Street was quite something. I was like, firstly, where’s all that time gone?”
Guy Pearce
Pearce, who starred on the show from 1986 to 1989, also turned up for that finale. The actor has racked up dozens of other credits — including a lead part in TV’s A Spy Among Friends — but some soap fans know him only as hardworking schoolteacher Mike Young. “I have had situations here where I’ve walked down the street and people have said: ‘Have you done any other acting since Neighbours?’” he told The Guardian in 2018.
Margot Robbie
This two-time Oscar nominee — who won raves with her lead role in this year’s Barbie — got a start playing music-obsessed teen Donna Freedman on Neighbours between 2008 and 2011. Robbie’s mother, Sarie Kessler, revealed in a 2019 Vogue Australia interview that her daughter traveled to Melbourne and cold-called a Neighbours casting agent for a part on the show.
Jesse Spencer
Now famous for his parts in House and Chicago Fire, Spencer also starred in Neighbours, filling the role of avid swimmer Billy Kennedy between 1994 and 2000. He reprised the part even as his Hollywood career took off, returning to the show in 2005 and again in 2022.
Eliza Taylor
Before her starring roles in The 100 and Quantum Leap, Taylor played two characters on Neighbours, including attention-seeking Janae Timmins, a fixture on the show from 2005 to 2008. Taylor’s husband, The 100’s Bob Morley, also starred on the show, though the future couple didn’t overlap.
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