Heartbreak High’s Lara Cox: ‘I still answer to Anita’

Where Are They Now? We tak to Heartbreak High’s Lara Cox on playing Anita Scheppers on the hit 90s television drama and where life has taken her since. FIND OUT.

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Lara Cox still answers when people call her Anita — it happened just this week even, which is remarkable since it has been 23 years since she starred on hit TV drama Heartbreak High.

“I don’t even think about it, I just answer,” Cox told Confidential. “When you get called it for so many years, it is like a second name.”

TV sweethearts Lara Cox and Callan Mulvey, who played Anita and Drazic on hit ‘90s TV show Heartbreak High.

Cox was 17 and had just finished school in Canberra when she landed the role of Anita Scheppers and moved to the big smoke of Sydney to shoot the ABC show.

Heartbreak High was based off the hugely successful film of the same name that starred Alex Dimitriades and Claudia Karvan and was based around life for students at Hartley High School.

Cox is grateful social media wasn’t a thing back then. She never had a Britney Spears hair shaving moment but remembers “fame” being more relaxed then.

She had her moment in the spotlight though and had extra attention as co-star Callan Mulvey, who played Drazic, was her boyfriend on and off screen.

Lara Cox 23 years after landing a role on Heartbreak High. Picture: Tim Hunter

“I often say I am so lucky I grew up without social media because we didn’t have to worry about any of that stuff,” she said.

“People came up and chatted to us but they were nice.

“We went to the same places mainly and hung out with friends and a lot of the cast became my family here in Sydney.”

Cox, 41, lives on Sydney’s northern beaches with husband Jeff Springer and their two young sons, Max and Jay.

Then: Lara Cox when she starred on Heartbreak High

Former Heartbreak High actor Lara Cox in 2019. Picture: Tim Hunter

The couple run an arborist business and while she’s kept acting, it has taken a back seat over recent years to focus on family.

Chances are she is more recognisable these days for her TV ads for the likes of Woolworths and Hahn Super Dry.

“I have been very fortunate with commercials,” she said. She is currently on our small screen promoting Cuddly softener.

“I feel very grateful for every single commercial I’ve been blessed with. I don’t really see it as a negative because it allows me to still be a mum to my kids.

“I look at these amazing women, who seem to be able to juggle the whole thing so effortlessly and I don’t know how they do it.”
Cox appeared on Heartbreak High from 1996 to 1999 and the show screened across the globe. She knows when it is being aired again even today when she receives random fan mail from people from different countries.

“I get little bits of lovely mail, that is pretty amazing after 20 years,” she said.

Lara Cox, Fleur Beaupert and Nathalie Roy on set of ABC TV series Heartbreak High.

Cox has worked consistently since that first acting break. Her credits include films Kangaroo Jack, Women He’s Undressed and The Marine 2, as well as TV shows BeastMaster, All Saints, H20: Just Add Water.

She’s also appeared on Home and Away as three different characters, most recently as Quinn Jackson in 2017 and before that as Marie Cashman in 2007 and previously Bianca Zeboat in 1999.

“With the smaller characters, I don’t think they are as memorable because they have so many guesties coming through,” she said. “I thoroughly enjoy it, they are so professional.”

Cox would like to see a return to Heartbreak High and joked she could come back as a teacher.

“It would be cool to do,” she said. “It’d be interesting for kids nowadays with social media and all the pressures they face.”

Heartbreak High cast members Tina Bursill, Lara Cox, Rel Hunt, Ada Nicodemou and Sebastian Goldspink.