Tammin Sursok will not be afraid to put on her coronary heart on her sleeve.
The former Home And Away star has bravely endured battles with psychological well being, bullying, consuming issues and, most not too long ago, a terrifying close to brush with a faculty capturing in Nashville, the place she at the moment lives.
But when it got here to tackling a number one position inthe new movie Blood, Sweat and Cheer, she didn’t really feel brave sufficient to star within the psychological thriller for worry it could set off a few of her previous and current traumas, she tells news.com.au.
“I worked with my acting coach and she said to me, ‘This is going to cost you.’ And I was like, ‘Well, what do you mean?’ She’s like, ‘You’re going to come home every single day and be spent and feel exhausted because this character is in a lot of pain,’” she says.
“But I had to go there. I had to explore areas of myself that I really didn’t want to – parts of my past and my traumatic experiences – and try to build a character from the bottom up.”
“I guess the reservation was I knew that I couldn’t fake it – I’m not that type of actor. I have to really go there,” 39-year-old Sursok provides.
“I suffer from anxiety and I can let my mind go to dark places when it’s to do with the world. You feel like you don’t have extensive control and you’re overwhelmed, and it’s hard to then go to work and really try to mess that up and bring it to the surface when you’ve spent so much of your day, your month, your year, your life, keeping those feelings dormant.”
In the movie, which is, impressed by true occasions, Sursok performs suburban divorcée Renee, who makes an attempt to relive her youth by way of her teenage daughter, Cherie (performed by Monroe Cline). When Renee’s parenting turns into overbearing, Cherie strikes in along with her father, paving the best way for Renee to masquerade as her daughter and get the cheerleading scholarship she felt she missed out on in highschool. But her obsession quickly turns lethal.
“I was intrigued, entertained and shocked, literally from the first page,” she says of studying the script, which feels indebted to each Mean Girls and Heathers. “I know what it’s like to be a mother. I know what it’s like to feel like as you get older you’re becoming more invisible.”
The theme of remorse runs all through the movie, which poses the query: if you got the prospect, would you do-over your life? For Sursok’s character, it’s a agency sure, however for the actress herself, the reply will not be so black and white.
The South African-born, Aussie-raised actress acquired her begin on long-running cleaning soap Home And Away when she was simply an adolescent – and, wanting again, she wonders if she ought to have waited till she was older to start her profession.
“I obviously don’t have that desperation that the Renee has, but I know what it feels like to feel like you want to live your life over,” says Sursok, who went on to star in The Young And The Restless, Hannah Montana and Pretty Little Liars after leaving Home And Away in 2004.
“The thing is, the times in my life that I look back on and go, ‘Ooh, would I have started Home And Away at 15?’ I was so impressionable, I was so young, I didn’t really know which way was up. I chose to be an actor at 15. It wasn’t my parents – I wanted it so badly. But would it have been more helpful for me mentally if I had just had a normal high school experience and wasn’t in the public eye?”
“But then if I didn’t have that experience and I never would’ve gotten to where I am now, I would never have been on set and met my husband [film producer Sean McEwen], which means I would never have had my kids. So when you say, can you do something over, I guess it would mean could you do it over and still land where you are?”
Sursok says if she does have one remorse, it’s not being kinder to herself when she was youthful.
“If I could do it over, it would be less about the events and things that I did and more about how kind I was to myself,” she says.
“I still am not as kind as I could be to myself. I am a total perfectionist and that causes me a lot of anxiety. I would just give myself a break and I would give myself more compassion and I would tell myself that I was worthy and enough.”
Sursok acquired to considerably relive that period in her life when she filmed a six-episode stint on Neighbours final yr. Prior to that, the actress was adamant she would by no means return to soaps, however she modified her thoughts as a result of she “wanted to make sense of my childhood”.
“I’d always said in the press that I would never ever come back to it just because it was a chapter and that chapter was over, and I was happy with how that chapter went,” she says. “And I was done. I was ready to move on to a different chapter, but then they offered me the role.”
Sursok says she realised taking the position could possibly be a chance to re-examine her teen cleaning soap star years.
“It was so long ago. I don’t know if I made up what it felt like, what the smells were, just what the cafeteria, how it felt, how big the studio was … All these things that I didn’t know if I had made up in my head about the experience, I wanted to do that as an adult.”
“And it was a totally different experience, but also similar to what I remember. Firstly, I can’t believe how many hours they shoot. I don’t think I could have a family and do that — it’s too many hours. But it was a really cool experience. I’m glad I did it.”
Aside from appearing and being a mother or father to daughters Phoenix, 9, and Lennon, 4, Sursok additionally focuses on her podcast, Women on Top, which she co-hosts with media persona Roxy Manning. The episodes discover the chaos and the allure about being a lady, mom and every part in between – and have superstar friends equivalent to Alicia Silverstone, Tori Spelling, Corey Feldman and Rachel Bilson.
“We started the podcast when my four-year-old was in my stomach,” she remembers. “I was just feeling kind of lost. There’s been a few moments in my life where I felt lost around birth, I feel like I definitely have this sense of loneliness and I just wanted to connect with other people, connect with other women.”
“We talk about subjects that people just don’t. The first time you do anything, it feels like you don’t want to be that open and real, but then it just gets easier. Now I try to look at it like, will this help someone? Will this make someone feel less alone?”
Like in her podcast, Sursok could be very vocal on social media about her experiences each in her private and non-private life. Last month, the Nashville-based star was in tears when her daughter’s college additionally went into lockdown after the varsity subsequent door was focused by a shooter in a lethal rampage that left six individuals useless. Sursok says she and her husband at all times needed their daughters to attend highschool in Australia, however given the current shootings, they’re contemplating shifting right here sooner quite than later.
“It’s just trying to figure out what the next steps are because America’s in a bit of trouble right now, for sure,” she says. “Australia will always be home. I did marry an American husband and my kids were born in America, so it’s just kind of getting them to understand. They loved living in Australia for eight months during the pandemic, so it’s trying to figure out a way to do that again.
“I want the kids to experience what it is growing up [in Australia]. I think it’s a pretty awesome upbringing.”
Blood, Sweat and Cheer streams on Tubi from April 15.
Source: www.news.com.au
