Olympia Valance: ‘People are surprised I’m nice’
Actor Olympia Valance reveals the unbreakable bond she has with her mum, that “life-changing” stint on the dance floor and why she’s much nicer than she seems on social media.
Stellar
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As Olympia Valance immediately points out, she and Tania Gogos-Wilson are more than mother and daughter.
“She’s my best friend,” Valance tells Stellar, as the two sit down at a restaurant in St Kilda and order one of their favourite dishes.
Actually, they don’t even need to look at the menu. They’re here often and they already know what they want: dumplings.
“It was me and my mum for a long time,” the former Neighbours star explains. “So we’ve already had this really special relationship.”
When Valance was a young girl, Gogos-Wilson split from her father; she would later get remarried to Australian rock legend Ross Wilson of Daddy Cool and Mondo Rock fame.
In the flesh, Valance seems bright and bubbly, although she keeps losing her train of thought mid-sentence and knowingly apologises for it.
Gogos-Wilson, 54, knows why. “You were watching Netflix, darling, ’til 2am,” she says, mock-scolding her with a laugh.
The pair exude the very closeness they profess to share, and happily admit that they speak every day.
At 26, Valance belongs to a generation that has an aversion to actually speaking on a telephone; interestingly, it’s her mum who confesses she sends her daughter up to 150 texts a day.
“And she’ll answer twice... at the end of the day,” Gogos-Wilson good-naturedly sighs, but with little hint of annoyance.
Valance insists she simply prefers face-to-face talks or actual phone calls.
“I talk to my mum about absolutely everything,” she says. “She knows everything about me. More than any of my friends — and that’s what I’ve really respected about Mum. She’s so open. I’ve never felt like I had to hide anything from her.”
That might sound like every mother’s dream, but Gogos-Wilson is quick with a wry retort: “I wish you would sometimes. She overshares.”
Valance, who recently finished a stint on Network 10’s rebooted Dancing With The Stars, has spent the past year shuttling back and forth between Australia and Los Angeles.
But as an Ambassador for Multiculturalism with the Victorian Multicultural Commission, she is also proud to note that “I go to Greece and I feel more at home. As an actor, my role is to represent a multicultural voice; whether in theatre, film or comedy. Each discipline has been influenced, from every corner of the world.”
Valance is of Serbian heritage on her father’s side and Greek on Gogos-Wilson’s, whose family owns the Greek-Australian newspaper Neos Kosmos.
“My kids were brought up very much knowing where the family came from. We’ve kept the Greek culture very strong. I love our country and feel so blessed that we’ve been brought up here, but the blood in me runs 100 per cent Greek.”
Ross Wilson moved in when Valance was four, and adapted to his new brood’s way of life after initially being surprised by the way extended family members would regularly turn up unannounced.
“I went, ‘Babe, we’re Greek, get used to it!’ And he did,” says Gogos-Wilson. “Everything is always at our house, whether it’s Greek Easter or Christmas [and] everyone’s birthdays.”
Valance backs her up, confirming an open-door policy has long been in place. “Always food, always down for a chat,” she says. “Sometimes I wouldn’t even be there and my friends would go over.”
There’s a chance Valance may miss a family holiday to Greece later this year if it ends up clashing with shoots for the second series of Network 10’s WAG drama Playing For Keeps, in which she plays bitchy footballer’s wife Tahlia.
“[Real WAGs] all watch it because they try to work out who’s who,” says Valance, adding that “no-one’s ‘based’ on anyone. I’m excited to play that role again because she’s so multi-layered, which is fun.”
Valance, whose elder half-sister Holly also appeared in Neighbours, won’t rule out a guest return to Ramsay Street and her breakout role as Paige, either.
“I felt by the end of Neighbours, whatever I could do, I did,” she says. “I never wanted to resent the place; I love it too much. [But] 35 years of Neighbours is coming up soon... maybe I’ll ask to come back.”
Until then, Valance — who was recently linked to Australian actor Luke Bracey — is focused on “being happy” and a live-in-the-moment outlook partly inspired by her time on Dancing With The Stars. It’s an experience she considers to have been life-changing.
“I love acting but I’m not 100 per cent sure it’s what I want to do for the rest of my life,” she says. “And that’s why I call it [that]. Because I realised I hadn’t felt that kind of passion for a long time.”
She also showed viewers more of who she considers the “real” Olympia Valance, and found out a lot more about herself than she expected.
“When I first started, Jarryd [Byrne, her dance partner] said, ‘Oh, you’re actually nice.’ I can’t tell you how many times I get that.
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“I think people see my Instagram and it looks... wanky. They meet me in real life and they’re like, ‘Oh, you’re different to how I thought you were going to be.’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, you’ve never met me.’”
Gogos-Wilson seconds her daughter’s sentiment, pointing out that beneath the glamorous celebrity façade is really just a down-to-earth mini-me.
“On the weekends, we’re at cousin Con’s and we’re all dancing Greek,” says Gogos-Wilson. “She’s just Olympia.”
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