Farewell to the Neighbors: Jackie Woodburne remembers: ‘It’s either parity or I leave.’ | Television tonight

EXCLUSIVE:

TV Tonight speaks with Jackie Woodburne
“Susan Kennedy” 1994 – 2025

Jackie Woodburne remembers the time she threatened to quit Neighbors.

It was quite early in her career as Susan Kennedy, mother of three and husband to Karl Kennedy (Alan Fletcher).

She had credits to her name for 15 years, inclusive Sons and Daughters, Cop Shop, Sara Dane, A Country Practice, Carson’s Law, The Flying Doctors and a year later Prisoner.

But behind the scenes there were rumors.

“I was about three years in and still getting paid less than Alan. I asked for equality in the contract negotiations. For obvious reasons, I felt like my input was equal. I felt like my previous work was equal. I felt like my value to the show was equal, and so I asked for equality,” she says Television tonight.

But bosses rejected her demands, in what would prove typical of Australia’s gender pay gap at the time.

“That just pushed every feminist button in my body,” she emphasizes.

“I said to my agent, ‘Look, I don’t think I can go to work with a happy heart and do a good job with a feeling of resentment. So it’s parity, otherwise I’m leaving.’ And luckily I got parity, and Alan and I had parity from that day on.

Fortunately, Susan Kennedy would live on, all told over 31 years on screen, becoming the matriarch of Ramsay Street and delighting viewers with a nuanced on-screen relationship with Alan Fletcher.

“That was just the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I think for both of us, we were able to do this for so long because we just got it. We got what was expected of us, what the job entailed, what it took, what we could do. We both have a very strong work ethic. We both like to have fun on set. And we just kind of fit in,” she explains.

“We got into this rhythm pretty early on where we would do a scene, especially back in the day when we had three kids. We would say, ‘I think we should go ‘Ad Libby Overlappy’ at this point and that’s what we called it. There was no way they could cut it into singles or even into two-shots. They had to keep it wide so we could just tumble over each other.

“Some writers tried to write for it, which told us when they thought the scene should be Ad Libby Overlappy, but we often just did it instinctively.”

The Kennedy magic originated in the early days, hitting the streets with teenagers Malcolm (Benjamin McNair), Libby (Kym Valentine) and Billy (Jesse Spencer), although Woodburne remembers a little bit of casting shell shock.

“I looked at these three kids and thought, ‘Well, this is a terrible mistake. There’s no way I could have kids this age.’ But strangely enough, it didn’t seem to bother anyone!”

“I went from playing roles where I was maybe a six-year-old to an 18-year-old. So that was a bit of a shock, but I still managed to do it.

“But even on that day, we arrived with the three kids and we were unpacking the car. I remember Jesse Spencer walking past me and he was carrying the base of a lamp. As I passed him, I just said, ‘Are you sure you can handle that love?’ And it just created a little dynamic between us. Luckily, the kids were so great that they responded right away, like Jesse and Kym Valentine just started calling each other names like “suck heads,” just brother-sister stuff – all improvised in this unboxing car scene, and everyone went along with it.

The family chemistry is also a credit to long-term casting director Jan Russ, who was responsible for so many of the Golden Age talent discoveries, some of which are now on the world stage.

“We definitely tip our hats to Jan Russ, not just for that, but look at the casting decisions she pushed people towards. She was absolutely amazing.”

What was it like filming on the street, Pin Oak Court Vermont South, just a 5-minute drive from the Nunawading studios?

“We were literally on the road. You know, you went into The Glen afterwards to do some shopping, no problems at all. I mean, Ramsay Street was always a lot of fun. In the winter, not so much, because it was the coldest place on earth. And of course, in the summer, if you stood on that road, the asphalt got up to 50 degrees Celsius. That was quite brutal, I must say. But that goes for any location in extreme weather. Filming on the streets was always a lot of fun, because generally there were a lot of us there. So you had that fun, boisterous group energy,” she continues.

“We had two big studios, Studio A and B, both in Nunawading. They would shoot on sets in one studio, move the whole crew to the next studio and shoot other sets. In the meantime, different actors would go back and forth to the locations, not just Ramsay Street of course, but when they built all the outdoor sets on the backlot it became very streamlined. It was literally just a two minute walk up the hill and you’re at Harold’s, so it was a really brilliant location for quick filming. television.

“You would just hope that a production house, one of the big streamers, or someone else would use it. I mean, it’s old, but it’s an incredible facility.”

She names her two favorite storylines, involving both Rob Mills and Natalie Bassingthwaighte.

“I always come back to the Karl, Susan and Izzy love triangle because it had such a long run. It lasted so long and it gave all of our characters the opportunity to play vastly different emotions, everything from drama to comedy. For Susan, she had never hated anyone until that point. She had never had an enemy. So for her to explore how she represented those emotions, that was a nice change for me as an actor, to get to play that with Nat. That was great,” she says. remembers.

In such scenes she would be nominated for a prestigious Rose D’or Award.

As headmaster, Susan also hired Finn Kelly (Rob Mills), turning them into opposing forces and culminating in a memorable episode.

“Jason Herbison wrote an episode and two-handed takes that felt very different Neighbors. ….It was pretty intense, but I love Rob. I think he’s great, he’s worked so hard and I think he’s done so well. We really need to dig deep into every possible moment of this story. I really enjoyed doing that”

There were other storylines involving multiple sclerosis, surrogacy, cyberbullying and even retrograde amnesia, with Susan reverting to a 16-year-old teenager.

“I really loved that story. After the initial shock of it and the ‘Really?’ At that moment I thought, ‘Okay, come on, do your job. Who was she when she was 16?’ So that was my challenge. She met her husband and thought, ‘Who is this horrible old man?’ So there was a lot of fun in the story, and also a lot of pain in trying to find my way back to that life,” she continues.

“But firing a Catholic priest was almost a bridge too far. But again, you just have to try to find the truth in that.

“Every now and then you’d hit a wall, or you’d think, ‘This is really hard,’ because the character is just doing this to drive the plot. It’s not a character-true moment. But I understand that I have to do it or we can’t get to the next part of the story. You’d do your best to find another way to get through those moments so that you could at least feel like you’ve found some authenticity in them. But every now and then you’d just have to do one take it for the team and just get on with it.’

“We’ve accepted it over the years because it was a soap opera, our extended storylines, and, you know, we get it. It is what it is. But honestly, I’ve seen people give performances that are flawless. They’re absolutely stunning on any stage, in any media. They’re flawless, great performances. And I think a lot of that gets lost. We get a little bit dismissed for being a heightened soap opera. I think that’s a shame, because people’s work doesn’t often get the credit it deserves,” Houtbrand says.

“We were pushing diversity before it was even a priority for most people, and I think that’s thanks to Jason. He wanted to tell stories that reflected our world. And our world is not a white-bread world. It’s just not. He was very instrumental in pushing those stories home. A lot of people thought he was pushing it too hard. The first gay wedding on television. We had all kinds of ethnicities in all kinds of roles. Blended families, Rainbow families. We were telling stories that we hoped would appeal to all kinds of people. to attract our audience, but also just to tell stories that we all encountered in our daily lives.”

Is that making up for lost time? Ramsay Street has long been criticized for once being the whitest street in Australia? Now everyone is welcome.

“At the time, I think it was just a reflection of television in general, because if you had an ethnic character in a role, you had to give them a backstory to ‘explain’ their ethnicity. They couldn’t just be the Sri Lankan person who works at the dry cleaners. They had to have a backstory about why they were there. And they probably had a bit of a comedic accent. I mean, before my time, I think there was an Asian family with a storyline about eating a dog. I mean, gruesome, gruesome. But I doubt we were extraordinary at the time,” she suggests.

“Now you have people of different ethnicities and (diversities) just playing a character and you don’t have to explain why… because that’s Australia.”

Changes also had consequences behind the scenes. Unlike her days of gender equality, Neighbors welcomed female camera operators and female sound technicians as part of its mission to train up-and-coming crew members.

“It’s a wonderful acting school and a training ground for technicians. I don’t know of anywhere else where someone new can come in, with a dream and a desire to work in production, and have the opportunity to be trained through the ranks. I just don’t know that that could happen anywhere else.”

Finally, her message for fans?

“The most overwhelming feeling is gratitude,” she reveals. “Gratitude for working on this iconic, incredible show for so long. Gratitude for the life it gave me. Gratitude that the audience was so loyal to us, so dedicated and so generous with their love for the characters and for the show.”

“Honestly, it’s just overwhelming gratitude.”

Neighbors final 8.40 pm Thursday at 10.