Ada Nicodemou reveals secrets from the Home and Away set.

For television amateurs like myself, TV production seems like this magical land where scenes are shot chronologically, sets are actual places and characters are real people.

But Ada Nicodemou is here to redeem all my foolish misconceptions, talking to The Morning Show about what really goes on behind the scenes of one of Australia’s longest running and most popular soaps.

The 39-year-old, who has starred on the show for the last 16 years, is a well-versed expert on all things soap.

So what goes on in an average day of filming? Do they shoot an entire episode every day?

And as an aside, how is it actually possible to be home AND away at the same time? (Spoiler: she doesn’t answer the last one. Presumably because she doesn’t know the answer and gets stuck in a bottomless philosophical vortex about time travel and what it means to be home.)

A photo posted by Ada Nicodemou (@adanicodemou) on Jun 1, 2016 at 10:03pm PDT

I digress.

“Sometimes it can be up to 12 to 14 scenes,” Nicodemou told Larry Emdur and Kylie Gillies.

“Then other days you’re going in there for one scene. It just really depends on the sets and the days as well.”

Perhaps even more surprisingly, or maybe only so for the noobs like yours truly, Nicodemou told the show that the Summer bay house doesn’t just exist all the time.  The diner is not always set up. And no it’s not a real house. Why would you even think that?

#throwbackthursday I think this picture needs no explanation???????? #whatwasithinking #badhair A photo posted by Ada Nicodemou (@adanicodemou) on May 11, 2016 at 11:54pm PDT

“When the diner set is up we shoot all the diner scenes, when the Summer bay house is up we shoot all of those. So on those days – because it’s my house – there’s a lot of scenes to do and a lot of dialogue.”

And for those watching at home? No, those tears aren’t real. And they’re not even all that easy to concoct. Here was I thinking that the only reason I am not a professional actress is because I can’t cry on cue.
 “I’m really bad at it,” she laughed.

“We’ve got a little secret that we use, it’s called a ‘tear blower’, and it’s basically a bit of a mentholated spirit type of thing that they blow in your eye. That kind of brings it on, and if you’ve got the emotion behind it you can cry.”

So, like eye drops I guess?
 

Watch Ada behind the scenes of the show.