Ada Nicodemou: ‘I’m smiling again’
In an exclusive interview, Ada Nicodemou opens up on how she copes with the trauma of delivering a stillborn baby five years ago, and tells how she found love again after the breakdown of her marriage.
Stellar
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There’s a good reason why Ada Nicodemou was nowhere to be seen when Home And Away’s cliffhanger season finale aired at the end of November.
When the episodes filmed months ago, the actor was enjoying a holiday in Greece with her son Johnas, seven, and partner Adam Rigby.
Days were spent sunning her toned body – at 42, Nicodemou is the fittest she’s ever been, thanks in no small part to regular early morning gym sessions.
She ate what she wanted; she drank champagne; she danced on tables. It’s Greece, after all. And Nicodemou was determined to take advantage of her time there.
“I used to be the good Greek girl,” she tells Stellar. “You know, save your money, drive the beat-up car. I lived that regimented life for such a long time, but now I’m like, ‘I work really hard. I’m going to enjoy myself as well.’ Life is full of ups and downs. But I’ve learnt you have to celebrate the ups, which I’m doing.”
And giving herself the permission to be happy is a lesson she had to learn in the hardest of ways. Next March, Nicodemou will mark 20 years as Home And Away’s Leah; in that time, she has played out more than her fair share of tragedy for the cameras.
But all of it pales in comparison to what Nicodemou personally experienced over the past five years.
In 2014, in her eighth month of pregnancy, Nicodemou gave birth to her second child, a boy named Harrison, with then-husband Chrys Xipolitas. He was stillborn.
Asked to reflect on the tragic loss now, Nicodemou explains, “The past five years really tested my positive personality. Life will never be the same again; there will obviously be a hole in your heart. We will always remember that child and what could have been.”
A year after the stillbirth, her marriage to Xipolitas crumbled under the weight of grief. Magnifying the matter was that both heartaches played out in the public eye.
“A lot of people come up and say sorry about Harrison, but I found that really difficult because I don’t want to break down in front of them,” says Nicodemou.
“I’ve had counselling, and I’ve just gone back again. It’s going to be an ongoing thing, because I want to get in a better place where I don’t freeze up when he’s mentioned.”
Perhaps the most difficult conversations she has to have about Harrison are with spirited, soccer-loving Johnas, who will still ask questions about the brother he never got to know.
“I don’t know how to answer them,” admits Nicodemou. “I just get so choked up. I think it’s nice that he’s keeping his little brother’s memory alive, but now I say, ‘It actually hurts Mummy when you keep going on about it.’”
But it was also Johnas who propelled her forward during the most excruciating moments – as she says, “I had to be strong for him.” She took cues from her own mother, who – along with Nicodemou’s brother – was there as she grieved.
“My mum’s a strong woman; I’ve had to be a strong woman,” Nicodemou tells Stellar. “I have a really great family. We are really close, and we just shut up shop – ‘This is our unit. We will get through it. Together.’”
The filming schedule on Home And Away, gruelling as it can be, also provided its own form of solace by keeping her occupied and focused on something other than her grief.
“Home And Away has been my saving grace,” she says. “We are like a family. We all really genuinely like each other. And we have fun. I mean... we’re not curing cancer.”
Castmate Lynne McGranger shares a dressing room with Nicodemou, and says that her resilient friend never brought any of her problems to work. “Let me tell you, Ada is a lot tougher and a lot braver than her character,” she tells Stellar.
“She just has this ‘get on with it’ attitude. She doesn’t want to be the victim. And it’s got her through those sh*tty times.”
Towards the end of 2016, Nicodemou was at a Seven Network industry event when she met businessman and CEO Rigby as the two were chasing food caterers around the room.
“I had never watched Home And Away and didn’t really know who she was,” Rigby tells Stellar, joking that he thought she may have been a weather presenter.
“I obviously noticed she was a beautiful girl and concluded she was probably in front of the camera.”
Impressed by her down-to-earth charm and their easy banter, Rigby decided to do some digging, found her agent’s details and reached out – asking if it would be appropriate to send Nicodemou some flowers and ask her out for coffee.
She still wasn’t ready to start dating – “I never thought I’d find love again; I wasn’t even thinking about it” – but his gentlemanly nature won her over, and was one of the reasons she felt comfortable eventually introducing him to Johnas.
“I wasn’t going to bring anyone into his life until he saw what love and respect looks like,” she says. “Asking someone else to help bring up your child is a big ask. I’m bringing up a little boy who will one day be a man, and I really want to bring up a gentleman.”
Rigby, who moved into Nicodemou’s home a few months ago, says she’s become a “stronger, lighter and happier” person in the time they have been together. McGranger agrees. “She’s found her soulmate,” she says of her castmate’s home life.
But Rigby is still not used to fans approaching Nicodemou for photos when they are out in public running errands. “To me she is just the goofy girl who makes me smile and brings joy and love to my life,” he says.
“The powerhouse who gets up at 4 or 5am every day, works out, takes care of her household, is an amazing mother and generous friend and partner, and then goes off to create a piece of magic in people’s lives
“I completely forget that Ada is a household name and part of so many viewers’ daily routine.”
Nicodemou, on the other hand, isn’t too bothered by the recognition despite the fact she has been a TV mainstay since 1994, when she made her acting debut on Heartbreak High.
“I mean, I’m not Kylie Minogue or Nicole Kidman,” she says. “I don’t need bodyguards. I can live a pretty normal life.”
It’s one of the key reasons she has been happy to stick with Home And Away since her initial stint, which was only meant to last 13 weeks.
“It’s a stable job,” says Nicodemou. “You get to have holidays. You work with great people. You are practising your craft every day. I’m sorry, but it’s pretty good! It’s the industry’s best-kept secret. I can see myself on Home And Away forever.”
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If the hours are often draining – especially when also raising a young child – Nicodemou is aware that she’s in the same boat as most working parents.
“You miss a lot of stuff. I’ve missed school assemblies. In the first year of school, [Johnas] turned up for his school photo in his sports uniform with a scratch on his face,” she says. “I think all parents struggle, and we all need to give ourselves a bit of a break.”
She adds that being able to raise her son in Australia is one of the reasons she never felt seduced by potential jobs in Hollywood, unlike so many of the castmates she has worked with through the years. (When Chris Hemsworth took the plunge, she later admitted she warned him, “Don’t get your hopes up!”)
“I always wanted to bring up children here. I always wanted to be a mum. I never chased the Hollywood dream,” she says. “Although now I reassess and go, ‘Was it because I was scared that I wasn’t going to make it?’ But I don’t want to go waiting on tables. It doesn’t interest me. I am really happy with where I am at.”
Nicodemou wryly points out that Leah is also having a bit of a moment after a drama-filled few years, especially where her romantic outlook is concerned.
“Obviously you end up playing parts of yourself when you have been on a show for 20 years,” she says. “I love that she’s an independent, strong woman who has gone through so much crap in life. Part of me relates to that.”
For now, though, she’s firmly living in the moment. “Call it Greek superstition, but in the past I’ve been scared to admit I’m happy because I felt like I will jinx it,” she explains.
“But I feel I’ve come through the other end. Everything has fallen into place. Johnas is really happy. He’s so healthy, he’s excelling at school, he’s got great friends.
“I’m really happy. I’m smiling again. And I’ve got this great relationship. I’m a hopeless romantic. Life hasn’t beaten that out of me.”