Tasmanian actor Bonnie Sveen gives birth to twins

TASMANIAN actor Bonnie Sveen has given birth to twin girls at the Royal Hobart Hospital.

Bonnie Sveen in 2015. Picture: Jonathan Ng

TASMANIAN actor Bonnie Sveen has given birth to twin girls at the Royal Hobart Hospital.

The former Home and Away star, who grew up in Tasmania, welcomed identical twin daughters Myrtle and Emerald last month, ahead of their expected arrival in early October.

The twins are believed to be doing well and are expected to go home soon.

Sveen and her partner Nathan Gooley have been splitting their time between Tasmania, New South Wales and Queensland in recent months.

Sveen grew up in the Huon Valley and attended Rosny College before moving to Sydney to attend the National Institute of Dramatic Art.

She remains a passionate advocate for her home state — she is an ambassador for the Save the Tasmanian Devil Appeal, appearing on Tasmanian television ads supporting the cause.

She has also added her voice to campaigns to save the state’s forests and endangered wildlife, including the swift parrot.

Bonnie Sveen in the Upper Florentine Tasmania.. Picture: NIKKI DAVIS-JONES

Sveen is best known for her role as Ricky Sharpe on Home and Away, which won her a Logie Award for Most Popular New Talent. She left the show in 2016 but has more recently appeared on The Secret Daughter alongside Jessica Mauboy.

The 29-year-old found out she was pregnant at seven-and-a-half weeks but didn’t discover she was having twins until 19 weeks. She was filming her first feature film, Australian war flick Escape And Evasion, on the Gold Coast when she discovered she was pregnant and called Gooley to break the news via FaceTime.

“I really didn’t want to tell Nath on FaceTime so that was a bit crap, but it was also just a massive flood of excitement,’’ Sveen told New Idea in August.

“My absolute first reaction when [the sonographer] said we were having twins: I cried. I cried for a while. I was thinking, ‘How am I going to do this?’ It’s our first baby and now it’s two. The pregnancy, the risk, the birth itself — everything. We are now going to have to be doubly prepared. So once that wave left, it was just absolute bliss. I was over the moon — happy crying, laughing, while Nathan was left with an open jaw. He was speechless. But we’ve always wanted kids. We’ve both got big families between us and now we’re adding two more.”