Actress Courtney Miller acknowledges that she felt anxious about going back to Summer Bay so soon after her character, Bella Nixon, had purportedly departed there forever.
26-year-old Miller, who portrayed the disturbed kid for four years before quitting, admits, “I was a little nervous going back.”
“I simply felt like it was going to be difficult job since there was a whole new cast that I didn’t know. In this strange little zone of “I’m old, yet I’m new and I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes,” I was both a former cast member and a newcomer.
“I was anxious but as soon as I arrived, I just walked back into the routine of everything,” the speaker said.
In order to pursue a photography career in New York, Bella moved away from Summer Bay and her partner Nikau Parata (Kawakawa Fox-Reo) in June of last year. When Nikau broke up with her over Skype a month later after a bikie group attacked his family, viewers last saw her.
Fans were angry when she left, but Miller claims that she chose to quit the soap.
“I chose to go on my own. I had undoubtedly completed my acting contract. In reality, I continued working for a further three months. She says of leaving a career and castmates she loved, “I joyously departed, but with many, many tears.
Miller was 22 when she was given the role of Bella, the troubled 16-year-old sister of Colby Thorne (Tim Franklin), a former Summer Bay police officer who is currently serving a life term for murder. Miller was eager to test her acting skills despite having finished several years of psychology coursework and even working as a phone counsellor at Lifeline while she was on the show.
The decision paid off. For a plot in which Bella was the focus of an online grooming scheme, she was nominated for the Most Popular Newcomer Logie.
Nonetheless, the young actor decided to return to school—acting school—after spending four years at Summer Bay.
When she decided to relocate to Melbourne to pursue what she had previously been doing successfully, “they thought I was crazy,” she claims.
“It was an ego reset and the hardest struggle I’ve ever faced.
“I wanted to take the acting class to show myself that I wasn’t just in it for the short-term glory but for the long haul as well.
“When I initially arrived at the acting school, I panicked a little because I believed I wasn’t supposed to be there or I’d made the wrong option, but by week two, I knew I had made the right one.
“It was the most firmly anchored event of my life. It was astounding.
Miller acknowledges that it is ironic that her first job after theater school was on Home And Away.
I honestly believed that when I left, I was saying goodbye, she admits, despite the fact that few characters from the show ever return and, if they do, it is typically years rather than months later.
Bella remarks that although though she had been gone for a long time, other characters on the show frequently brought up her existence, making her return “strange” because my tale had continued without me.
She was mentioned. Despite the fact that I, Courtney, didn’t, she did continue to exist in that universe.
When Bella shows up at Dean (Patrick O’Connor) and Ziggy’s (Sophie Dillman) doorstep, they are taken aback. It appears that after completing her Australian exhibition, she wanted to visit the newborn before returning to New York.
However, hearing his former girlfriend is in town, Nikau decides to track her down but quickly finds himself friend-zoned.
What happens next is being kept under wraps with widespread speculation that Fox-Reo is leaving the show this year.
However, Channel Seven, which produces Home And Away, has yet to confirm whether this is true.
‘I was very lucky to be called back,” Miller says, adding that accepting the producers’ offer for her to reprise Bella helped her realise she had made the right decision to leave and move on with her life.
“It worked out well because there was still a storyline there that needed to be completed. It was the best experience ever.”
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