Big Read: Winners and Losers' Zoe Tuckwell-Smith expecting a baby

Zoe Tuckwell-Smith has much to smile about. Picture: David Cook Source: Supplied

 

 

Colin Vickery, The Daily Telegraph, reports

Sometimes life imitates art.

Just ask Zoe Tuckwell-Smith.

The Aussie actor spent most of last year padded up to play the pregnant Bec (Rebecca) Gilbert on Winners and Losers.

Now Tuckwell-Smith is pregnant in real life. She and long-time partner, actor and director Damon Gameau, revealed in June that they were expecting their first child.

Here's hoping Tuckwell-Smith has a happier time in the aftermath of her baby's arrival than her TV character.

Bec has spent most of this year's third series of the Channel 7 drama getting over the death of her husband, Matt O'Connor (Blair McDonough).

Matt died after a tragic accident. He was working on the block of land in the country where the couple planned to build their dream home when an acetylene tank exploded and he was engulfed in flames.

Bec has also had to cope with the revelation that before his death, Matt had been cheating on her with nemesis Tiffany Turner (Michaela Banas).

Bec is raising baby son Harrison with the help of her ex-boyfriend, Doug Graham (Tom Wren), who happens to be the boy's biological father.

This week's Winners and Losers showed Bec at a crossroads. She has decided to sell her salon and start a new chapter in life.

"Bec has been through the wringer," Tuckwell-Smith says.

"She has been through all the possible lows that life can throw at you.

"Losing Matt in such a traumatic way, raising a child pretty much on her own - the only way is up really.

"What we're about to see from Bec is that she is going through a transition phase into a fresh start. There is the possibility of a brighter future and also a more honest future.

"She can no longer deny that her relationship with Matt was not the ideal she had imagined in her heart.

"She always envisaged a long-term future with Matt and now she's got a blank canvas."

There are more than a few echoes of Bec's dilemma in the recent series of Offspring. Like Bec, Nina Proudman (Asher Keddie) faces life as a single mother after the shock death of her partner.

Some pundits are predicting that Offspring viewers, already traumatised by the passing of anaesthetist Patrick Reid (Matthew Le Nevez), may shy away from next year's series because it could be too upsetting.

The makers of Winners and Losers have been able to offset Bec's dark storylines with sunnier storylines featuring friends Sophie Wong (Melanie Vallejo), Jenny Gross (Melissa Bergland) and Frances James (Virginia Gay).

This year the show has also introduced Katherine Hicks (Rescue Special Ops) as Jenny's half-sister Sam McKenzie.

Tuckwell-Smith hasn't been afraid to take Bec to some dark places. In fact, she has relished it.

"Our show in the past has always been very happy-go-lucky so I have felt proud to be able to bring a bit more depth to the character and show her evolution. I hope I have done it just. I haven't been through half the things she's been through.

"I did a lot of reading about people who had lost relatives and loved ones suddenly and how they had lived through it.

"It was really humbling to read true accounts of what people go through.

"I really enjoyed doing that justice - bringing a voice to some of the darker experiences of life, but also showing a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel - that people can overcome huge tragedy."

Tuckwell-Smith was recently photographed showing off her baby bump as she dined with close friends at a Bondi cafe.

Tuckwell-Smith says acting out Bec's pregnancy last year was a "practice run" for the real-life event.

Fans will remember that Bec had a home birth, surrounded by Sophie (who delivered the baby), Jenny and Frances.

"This pregnancy is much more delightful than anything Bec went through," Tuckwell-Smith laughs.

"(For a start) I'm pregnant to someone I actually love. It has been wonderful. Damon and I are so happy. We're really excited about being parents. We feel very lucky. I've been very well."

Tuckwell-Smith's pregnancy isn't expected to affect filming of Winners and Losers if it goes to a fourth season.

Series three wrapped in July. Seven hasn't announced a fourth series yet though the ratings have been encouraging with an average of more than one million viewers nationally per episode.

If series four does go ahead, filming wouldn't start until January at the very earliest.

"I couldn't have timed this pregnancy better if I'd tried," Tuckwell-Smith says.

"It is hard to tell what happens with a child. You can't know. Hopefully it will be straight back in (to work on Winners and Losers) and it will flow smoothly.

"It (baby) will have so many aunties. Virginia, Melanie, Melissa and I are very close and when Katherine came along we welcomed her with open arms because she is hilarious and a great actor.

"That has made the job over the last three years really easy. There is nothing like turning up to work when the environment is relaxed and everyone is compatible.

"Winners and Losers is not like Neighbours or Home and Away where you can see it going on indefinitely.

"Hopefully we've got a couple more seasons in us. Who knows what the future will hold?"

Tuckwell-Smith reckons there is still plenty to explore in Bec's life journey.

"Bec has always been very good," Tuckwell-Smith explains.

"She's done the right thing. I guess I like that about her - that goodness in her.

"Now that is tempered with reality. She always had clear definitions of what was right and wrong and now she is left with a grey area - that Matt wasn't the love she necessarily thought. She's had the edges knocked off her. She's more accepting of life's uncertainty and its imperfections.

"That makes her more relaxed and a bit more accepting of other people's imperfections. She used to be judgmental, but now she's more understanding of other people's foibles.

"She is also a bit more fun. Going through something that rough (Matt's death), it makes you appreciate life more."

Winners and Losers, Channel 7, Tuesday, 8.50pm

Seven's shock Winners and Losers finale a buzz for TV actor Blair McDonough

Blair McDonough's character was killed off in dramatic Winners and Losers finale on Seven. Source: National Features

Nui Te Koha and Colin Vickery, The Daily Telegraph, report

Winners and Losers star Blair McDonough reckons there is life after his television death.

A healthy 1.172 million Aussie viewers watched the explosive 2012 finale of the Channel 7 drama last night.

McDonough's character Matt O'Connor was killed when his ute stacked with gas cylinders exploded.

Seven had teased viewers with a "Who will die?'' promotion in the lead-up to last night's show.

"I've been bruised, bashed, beaten and blown up,'' McDonough said today. "My deaths have become run of the mill.''

McDonough shot to fame when he was the runner-up on the first series of reality show Big Brother.

It led to an acting career which has included Aussie shows Neighbours, City Homicide, and Sea Patrol.

McDonough also starred in UK police drama Heartbeat.

"On Neighbours I had temporary blindness and broke a few limbs, on City Homicide I was killed by a metal pole to the head, and in Sea Patrol I was bashed by Navy officers and then sentenced to life in jail,'' the 31-year-old says.

The death of McDonough's Matt O'Connor came after it was revealed that he had betrayed wife Bec (Zoe Tuckwell-Smith) by having an affair with rival Tiffany Turner (Michala Banas).

"It's good to have a story arc, get to where you want to go, and then shock everyone,'' McDonough says.

Winners and Losers has been commissioned for a third series, which will screen in 2013.

Soap star Melissa Bergland admits to 'itchy feet'

Zoe Tuckwell-Smith, Melanie Vallejo, Virgina Gay and Melissa Bergland / Pic: Channel 7 Source: The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph reports

The women behind the gal pals of Winners & Losers have vowed to stay with the well-received soap but one is struggling to relate to her on-screen character.

After the season two finale won the ratings on Tuesday night with 1.172 million viewers, cherry-coiffed Melissa Bergland said she hoped to continue on the Seven show "as long as we're all having a good time" but wasn't much like her bumbling alter ego Jenny Gross.

"I'm so far removed from all of the stuff she is going through," the Adelaide native told Confidential. "I'm not at the point where I relate to the whole settling down and wanting to have a family thing - I always have itchy feet. I like to travel and change house."

Bergland's co-stars, Virginia Gay, Melanie Vallejo and Zoe Tuckwell-Smith, began filming season three in October without former Big Brother star Blair McDonough, whose character Matt O'Connor died in a gas explosion this week. "It's good to have a story arc, get to where you want to go, then shock everyone," the one-time Neighbours actor said.

Bergland said "everyone is keen to keep going" with the family favourite.

Hard luck story for winning Sophie Wong

Melanie Vallejo plays Sophie in the popular Melbourne drama Winners and Losers. Picture: Andy Drewitt Source: National Features

Colin Vickery, The Daily Telegraph, reports

Sophie Wong has always been the most controversial character on Winners & Losers.

In last year's first episode of the Channel 7 drama, it was revealed Sophie, played by Melanie Vallejo, had a cocaine habit.

It was a risky storyline for a supposedly warm and fuzzy show that centred on four female friends who win the lottery.

Now Sophie has split the Winners & Losers audience with her decision to have an abortion.

In last week's show, she revealed to boyfriend Doug (Tom Wren) that she was pregnant - but didn't want to keep the baby.

Sophie gave Doug no say in the matter. It was a done deal.

Doug, who desperately wants to get married and have children, is devastated.

The shock storyline has been a challenge for Vallejo. The 33-year-old married Matthew Kingston in May last year and is keen to start a family.

"It (terminating a pregnancy) is a huge decision for any woman," Vallejo says.

"It (the abortion storyline) sparked a lot of conversations with friends.

"It helped me to work through why would Sophie make that decision because that is not what I would do.

"(I realised that) a lot of people have babies because their relationship is not doing so well, but that's a horrible reason to bring another person into the world.

"It (abortion) is a completely valid choice (for Sophie). It would be ridiculous for her to have a child to Doug at this point in her life."

The first series of Winners & Losers was accused of being soft. Sophie, Frances James (Virginia Gay), Jenny Gross (Melissa Bergland), and Bec Gilbert (Zoe Tuckwell-Smith) spent most of their time bonding after being bullied years earlier by Tiffany Turner (Michala Banas).

This year things have deepened and Sophie's decision to have an abortion has topped a string of controversial storylines.

"Sophie doesn't really know what she wants," Vallejo says.

It is a very different story for Vallejo, who says marrying Kingston was "the easiest decision of my life" and that she wants to "have babies and lots of them".

"Channel 7 hired four women in their late 20s and early 30s to be in the show, so someone's going to get knocked up."

Vallejo, meanwhile, is tight-lipped about the looming season finale of the show.

What is known is that tragedy will strike with the death of one of the characters.

Seven has sent out previews of the episode with the final 10 minutes missing. It doesn't want any leaks.

The on-air promotion - "Who Will Lose Their Life?" - suggests a number of possibilities.

Sophie, Brian Gross (Francis Greenslade), Doug, Bec, Matt, and Frances are the possible candidates.

Viewers are teased with scenes of a gun, someone crossing the road, Bec driving erratically, furniture being smashed, Brian stepping in front of a bus, a motorcycle swerving, and a possible building accident.

Whatever happens will have a major impact on the storylines for next year's third season.

"Series three of Winners & Losers is all about re-building," a Seven spokesperson says.

"It's time for everyone to start over. Relationships, careers, aspirations will all be turned on their head."

-- Winners & Losers, Channel 7, Tuesday, 8.30pm

Winners & Losers put Melanie Vallejo off baby plans

Focused on her career: Actor Melanie Vallejo from TV show 'Winners and Losers'. Source: The Daily Telegraph

Zoe Nauman, The Sunday Telegraph, reports

Winners & Losers star Melanie Vallejo says preparing for her role as a dutiful step-mum on the show has put her off having children of her own.

As Sophie Wong on the Seven hit, the actor has been getting to grips with her best friend Bec O'Connor (Zoe Tuckwell-Smith) giving birth. And it was this that made Vallejo go from clucky to disinterested. "We thought it would be good to do some research before the labour scene, so we got out a home birthing video," she says.

"After watching that home birth, I wasn't so clucky.

"This woman gave birth in a paddling pool to twins, and it was the most amazing thing I had ever seen. But I thought I don't want babies. There has to be a better way. Who wants to go through that."

The actor says she was initially concerned about the triangle of Sophie's boyfriend Doug (Tom Wren) having a child with her best friend Bec.

"It's a difficult situation in the beginning - I was struggling with it and I was thinking: 'Is it too crazy or too Jerry Springer?' I think as the season went on, it's not that crazy. I actually think it has been a good spanner in the works for the dynamic of the four girls," she says.

Vallejo, who married Matt Kingston last year, says they watched the birth episode and it did prompt a discussion.

"The plotlines always start a discussion and we talk about them. The pregnancy thing did get thrown up, but after that, definitely not for while, I can tell you."

Great Scott

Down to earth ... Denise Scott. Photo: Simon Schluter

The Age reports

The Winners & Losers star tells Debi Enker she had to iron out a few issues before she mastered acting.

Trained as a teacher, Denise Scott decided in her 30s to pursue a career in comedy and subsequently spent decades on the stand-up circuit, performing solo and in group shows. In recent years she has been a regular guest on the ABC's Spicks and Specks, a radio host, a writer, has appeared on Agony Aunts talking about sex, romance and marriage, and this week features on Channel Seven's Pictures of You.

But perhaps the biggest leap came last year when she landed an ongoing role in Seven's drama series Winners & Losers. With her customarily self-deprecating humour, Scott says that the prospect of playing devoted, down-to-earth mum Trish Gross came as a surprise. ''I was 56. I have not had any work done - I know, hard to believe; I keep making a joke about that. But, you know, imperfect teeth, wrinkles, sun-damaged skin, not much acting experience. So to get a role on a commercial TV series was really fantastic.''

Scott credits the show's founding producer, Maryanne Carroll, with suggesting her for the part. She had met Carroll through the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and, given the kind of autobiographical material that she has made her own in her shows - wry, candid surveys of suburban life, sometimes performed wearing a terry-towelling bathrobe - it's not hard to see why she was thought to be a good fit for Trish.

The wife of Brian (Francis Greenslade) and mother of Jenny (Melissa Bergland), Patrick (Jack Pearson) and Bridget (Sarah Grace), Trish is the sort of welcoming woman who's always ready with a cuppa and a slice of homespun wisdom. Scott reckons the Grosses were conceived as ''a light-relief point of the show and to be a salt-of-the-earth loving family'', an adjunct to the central story of four female friends and their romantic and professional trials.

But it took an emergency call to Alan Brough, the director of Scott's stage shows, for a crash course in acting and four callbacks before she secured the part. She recalls that, initially on set, ''I felt like a goose. I had no idea what I was doing, even with simple things. I kept telling myself, 'Just look as though you care about this family,' and I did, so it wasn't like it was a big leap. But there were things, like ironing Jenny's shirt, where I'd want to go, 'No! I would never do this for my 27-year-old daughter,' and I'd have to think, 'Hang on, it's not actually my story. This is the story of another family.'''

Beyond possible creative differences regarding domestic issues there were the challenges of the craft. ''The first time a director came over and said, 'Can we have some tears?' my stomach just knotted,'' Scott says. ''It was the day that I'd dreaded. Maryanne told me when I got the gig that there would be a serious storyline and I'd said, 'Will I have to cry? Because I know that I cannot do that'. With all the other girls, you click your fingers and they can bawl; the guys too. It's amazing to watch, really humbling, actually. I'm gobsmacked at the art of acting.

''I'm definitely Method,'' she adds jokingly. ''So I was trying to think back to the last time I grieved and it was hopeless. I just panicked and then this lovely make-up artist said, 'I'll get you the tears stick', which I'd never heard of. She waved this thing under my eyes and whoosh! But it's shameful to call for the tears stick.''

Now, with the second season of the show safely under her belt, Scott says she's right into it. ''Working with Annie Phelan … was just awesome. There were scenes where she would bring me to tears and I was lovin' myself. Whoa, look at me, I'm an actress!''

However, the ironing does remain an issue. In a notable departure from Trish, Scott reckons she'd have a few choice words for adult kids who expect mum to iron their shirts: ''Wear it creased; get over it.''

Winners & Losers
Seven, Tuesdays, 8.30pm

Melissa Bergland's a winner as show finally sees light

Melissa Bergland from Winners and Loosers. Picture: Rob Leeson Source: Herald Sun

Luke Dennehy, The Sunday Herald Sun, reports

The second series of Winners & Losers was all wrapped up in April and the cast of the show is relieved the series is finally going to air.

The show has been a launching pad for Melissa Bergland, who has her own sense of style and is a real star on the rise.

She went into the audition with her signature red hair after being platinum blonde and producers loved it so much they kept her look as part of her character, Jenny.

Bergland said the cast was a pleasure to work with, especially her three co-stars, Virginia Gay, Zoe Tuckwell-Smith and Melanie Vallejo.

"It's gotten to the point now we can drop the polite act and we are genuine friends now," she said.

"I see them all separately on a fortnightly basis."

Packed to the Rafters returns for full season in 2012

Zoe Cramond from Packed to the Rafters. Picture: Channel 7 /
Source: Supplied

Colin Vickery, The Herald Sun, reports

CHANNEL 7 has promised Packed to the Rafters fans that it will show a full season of the popular Aussie drama in 2012.

The move comes after Rafters had a shortened and interrupted season last year.

In 2011, only 15 of Rafters' 20 episodes made it to air with the series stopped to make way for Winners and Losers.

This year’s Rafters features a range of new cast members.

Cameron Daddo will make his return to Australian TV as newspaper editor Adam Goodman, while former Neighbours star Brooke Satchwell will play new Rafter Electrical employee Frankie Calasso.

An early storyline will have Ben Rafter (Hugh Sheridan) deciding to move forward with his friendship with Emma (Zoe Cramond), a year after his wife Melissa’s death.

Other storylines include a health scare for Ted (Michael Caton) and a life changing decision by Nathan (Angus McLaren).

Other new cast members will include Jacob Allen as Dave’s brother Matt Jennings and Samantha Tolj as Sian Parry, a new love interest.

Packed to the Rafters returns on Valentine’s Day, February 14. 

Blair McDonough helps out with world thong record

Blair McDonough will be helping out at the Havaianas Australia Day thong challenge. Picture: Mike Keating Source: Herald Sun

The Herald Sun reports

Winners and Losers actor Blair McDonough is rallying Victorians to head down to the beach this Australia Day to set a new Guinness World Record.

Participants will flock to Torquay on Thursday to try and set a record for the longest line of giant inflatable thongs in the water, while raising cash for Nippers lifesaving programs.

McDonough agreed it would be a tough day in the office but said he was up to the challenge.

"Australia Day never used to mean much more than an excuse for another public holiday, but you finish this and you feel slightly patriotic," he said.

McDonough has enjoyed a strong career in acting since being the runner-up on the first series of Big Brother in 2001.

The show will be revived by Nine later this year and McDonough said he hoped producers choose the cast carefully.

"I hope they choose the ones that are a bit interesting rather than the ones that are just shocking," he said. "The first few really worked."

For more details on the Havaianas event, visit havaianasthongchallenge.com.au.