Why Aussie soap star Tempany Deckert turned her back on Hollywood for a different life
Former Home And Away star Tempany Deckert found fame with stars like Isla Fisher, Kate Ritchie and Ben Unwin. But she quit acting in favour of a different life and role.
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Exclusive: Former Home And Away star Tempany Deckert remembers the exact moment she knew she was famous.
“A bunch of teenagers were being arrested while we were shooting Home And Away on Palm Beach (in Sydney) and they all asked for an autograph,” Deckert, now 41, recalls. “They were being handcuffed at the time.”
But, in the eyes of her family, Deckert knew she’d really made it when she appeared on Celebrity Wheel of Fortune.
“I wiped the floor with (Blue Heelers star), Grant Bowler and my grandma was so impressed.”
On Home And Away in the mid-1990s, Deckert’s role as Selina Cook, the tearaway-with-a-heart-of-gold, made her a household name.
With her black eyeliner, flannel shirts and Dr Marten’s boots, Selina was all attitude and TV viewers in Australia and the UK loved her.
She was nominated for a Silver Logie in 1996, appeared on magazine covers around in Britain and Australia, and had the world at her feet. But fame had an unsettling effect.
“Becoming that famous overnight was a total shock,” Deckert tells News Corp Australia from her Los Angeles home, which she shares with her husband American actor/filmmaker, Brian Donovan, and the couple’s two children.
“I thought it would feel wonderful and relieving, but it was actually really disconcerting. People treated me as if becoming famous had given me a secret to life they hadn’t discovered yet, but I was the exact same person as before with the same skills.”
Ultimately, Deckert left the soap in 1998 to try her luck in Hollywood. But the roles she wanted weren’t there, and she became increasingly dissatisfied.
“I was new to town, so I was only auditioning for smaller roles that were often vacuous, boring, cliched rubbish. It was very uninspiring after working for 14 years in Australia with some of the industry’s best.”
When she became a mum, she also didn’t want to be separated from her kids.
“I didn’t want to be away from them for months at a time, so I made a decision to focus on writing.”
It paid off; she snagged a book deal, and an animated TV show she wrote was optioned by a production company.
Deckert is now the author of 18 Young Adult novels, including It’s Yr Life, The Shooting Stars, and the series Kids Inc/Radio Rebels and Kids Inc/Fashion Police.
She also teaches a course on how to write a novel in 10 weeks, both as part of the prestigious University of California’s [UCLA] “Extension
Program”, and via an online course that she runs through her own website, www.writeanovelchangeyourlife.com.
Looking back, Deckert says she doesn’t regret turning her back on Hollywood.
“I don’t think I would have gotten married and had children, or allowed myself to become a writer and teacher,” she says.
“I have a lot of very famous people around me and having to live in a world where you’re recognised 24/7 is very limiting. In some ways, I feel like I dodged a bullet.”
On the flip side, she reckons her former Home And Away castmate and close friend
of 25 years, Isla Fisher, handles the attention well.
“She’s very good at maintaining old friendships while still mixing with big Hollywood,” Deckert says. “Her birthday parties are eclectic, to say the least; one minute you’re chatting with an Oscar-winner, and the next you’re having an in-depth conversation with an Australian about where to buy Violet Crumbles in Los Angeles.”
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Still, the old friends do occasionally take time to remember those Summer Bay beginnings.
“We do laugh about the old days - it definitely feels like we went to boarding school together - we are bonded for life,” Deckert says. “I will always consider her my family.”
Deckert, who says she’s still friends with many former castmates (Tristan Bancks was staying at her LA home when she spoke to News Corp), says she was rocked by the recent death of her friend and former Home And Away star, Ben Unwin, who took his own life in August.
“Ben was such a unique, fun, gregarious person,” she says. “We had a very similar sense of humour.”
She says the two laughed a lot – on screen and off – recalling the time they attended a modern dance performance in Sydney, “got the giggles, and had to leave at intermission”.
“If you’ve ever watched Channel Seven’s annual Bloopers show, I’m always on it laughing at Ben - it was hard to keep a straight face around him.”
Recently, Deckert has begun auditioning for acting parts again. “Now that I’m older, the parts are much more layered and interesting,” she says. “A few irons are in the fire, so we’ll see what happens.”
These days, she also looks back on Selina with a familial fondness.
“People’s love for her makes me feel like I got it right,” Deckert says. “If she resonated with people, it was worth it. That said, I’m not sure how many real people have been inducted into cults and kidnapped on their wedding days … But hey, it’s good TV.”
Originally published as Why Aussie soap star Tempany Deckert turned her back on Hollywood for a different life
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