Kate Walsh opens up about Hollywood and her new life in Australia

She quietly moved to Australia during the pandemic, and now Netflix star Kate Walsh has opened up about her new life in Perth.

Most actors working in show business almost always find themselves gravitating to Los Angeles.

But, Hollywood star Kate Walsh has found herself being lured by the land down under, swapping the bright lights of tinsel town for a “quiet” lifestyle in Perth, Western Australia.

The Grey’s Anatomy actress, who’s gaining further recognition in buzzy streaming shows like Emily in Paris and The Umbrella Academy, said in mid-2020 she became “stuck” in Australia when her holiday turned into a lengthy stay thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic.

But it emerged the following year why she got “stuck” here in the first place – she had met and fallen in love with Australian farmer Andrew Nixon, who she’s now engaged to.

The US-born actress, 55, met Nixon on a cruise in early 2020, and has called Perth home ever since.

Kate Walsh with her fiance Andrew Nixon in Perth in January 2022. Picture: Ponyo_Kiki / BACKGRID

Speaking to news.com.au, Walsh opened up about her very different lifestyle in WA with her Aussie man.

“I really love Western Australia … I think nature here eclipses everything. It drives me,” Walsh says.

“I like the slowness. It’s really good for me. And then you go back overseas and you’re like, ‘Oh my god. People are insane,’” she laughs.

“I feel very fortunate I can pop back to LA, go to work, and then come back here and live my best life.”

Walsh, who’s been booking back-to-back TV productions for almost three decades, said her workaholic mindset changed after discovering she had a brain tumour in 2015, when she was just 48.

So she moved from LA to New York (where she still has an apartment she sublets) and made more time for family, friends and travel.

Kate Walsh at the Emily in Paris season 3 premiere. Picture: Gael Turpo 2022

Walsh has been a red carpet regular for years.

“I think a lot of people can relate, whether it’s some big event or a health crisis, or a marriage ending, or a loss of a loved one, you’re like, ‘OK, I’m still here. Part two,’” she says.

“And for me, that was … I needed my life to be a lot more balanced.

“And then, I fell in love with an Aussie, and here I am. And I love it. I’m very grateful.”

Walsh says it’s usually younger people who recognise her on the street, but for the most part, she can live a regular life.

“Some people, it’s really cute, some young people will freak out,” she says. “But generally, everything’s very mellow.”

Walsh is speaking at the Vogue Codes in Conversation breakfast in at Crown Perth today, where she will talk about her experiences as a woman in an industry that historically – and infamously – has been dominated by men.

Walsh was a working actress for years before the #MeToo movement sparked necessary change in 2017.

While she declines to talk about personal experiences, Walsh says she “doesn’t know a single woman who hasn’t been harassed”.

Walsh is speaking at Vogue Codes in Conversation in Perth on August 16.

“Literally, I don’t know a single female in my life that hasn’t in some way been harassed, abused or had to deal with garbage,” she says.

“Before that [MeToo] it was sort of like, what’s more important? Keeping a job and just dealing and finding a way to navigate all the unfairness. Because the whole business is unfair. The world is unfair.

“So for me, that was just a part of it, that was just like, ‘Oh yeah, there’s some creeps in the world and there’s some weirdos.’”

However, Walsh says she’s been “blessed” to work with a flurry of people that “write for women”, namely, Shonda Rhimes (Grey’s Anatomy, Bridgerton) and Darren Star (Sex and the City, Emily in Paris).

Walsh stars in Emily in Paris as Madeline Wheeler. Picture: Netflix

She also was a series regular on Grey's Anatomy.

She also heaped praise on The Umbrella Academy writer Steve Blackman. Walsh plays The Handler in the hit Netflix series, with her character initially created with a “John Hamm type” in mind.

“[Blackman] was like, ‘We’re not going to get John Hamm, do you want to do it?’,” Walsh recalled.

“But I was like, ‘Please don’t change anything about the role’. We used to joke … Write a script and write them all male, and then we’ll just take half the characters and make them female. Because so many people just didn’t know how to write for women.

“And to Steve Blackman’s credit, he kept all the jokes, he kept all the gravitas of the character and all the inappropriateness that otherwise would’ve been quintessentially male.”

As for the actors’ strike that has brought many TV and film productions to a halt, Walsh explains how streaming has completely changed the game in terms of what workers are being paid.

SAG-AFTRA members on the picket line outside of Warner Bros. Discovery. Picture: ANGELA WEISS / AFP

“It used to be that as a working class actor or somebody who’s just coming up, if you booked a pilot, even if that show didn’t go ahead, you would get double your episodic salary and it was enough to last you through the year,” she says.

“You’d make enough to like get your pension and health and you could keep going, even if you didn’t work for the rest of the year. It was enough as a beginning actor, more than enough to keep you going. And now it’s just not that way.

“If you’re not the 0.0000001 per cent like Tom Cruise or Nicole Kidman … There’s a very tiny percentage of actors that make ridiculous money.

“So, the revenue stream has not changed since streaming. The streamers, like Netflix and Amazon and whatever, they’re like, ‘We just can’t, the business model doesn’t support it, it’s a subscriber base’.

“It does actually support it. There are metrics that show this. Of course it does. You just have to pay your labour, and it’s not happening.”