He’s starred as Jarrod “Toadfish” Rebecchi in Neighbours for an incredible 25 years, and in 2019 actor Ryan Moloney is “super proud” to be nominated for his first TV WEEK Logie Award.
Ryan has been nominated for the Most Popular Actor Award, for his portrayal of fan-favourite Toadie. His on-screen partner Eve Morey, whose character Sonya Rebecchi tragically died following a battle with ovarian cancer, has also been nominated. Eve is up for Most Popular Actress and the coveted Gold Logie Award.
Meanwhile, Neighbours is also nominated for Most Popular Drama and Most Outstanding Drama. Yep, that’s a total of six nominations for the long-running soap.
Eve and Ryan at the TV WEEK Logie Awards nominations event on Sunday.
We caught up with Ryan at the nominations event in Queensland on Sunday, to chat all things Logies in the wake of the announcement.
.jpg?resize=380%2C285)
So, you are nominated for most popular actor…
Mr Popular! Yeah, great! Excellent!
What did you feel when you heard the announcements today?
Um, look, I’m super proud. I’m very grateful to be nominated, you know, first time in 25 years. So I guess I finally got something right. But I’m super grateful, super proud that both Eve and I are nominated and that she’s actually nominated for Gold as well, which I think is amazing, but probably more so that Neighbours is actually in two categories for the most popular, and most outstanding. So I think it kind of is a bit of a testament to how much work we’ve all put in over the last year and it’s showed, and it’s paid off.
WATCH: Eve Morey finds out she’s nominated for a Gold Logie. Story continues after video…
It’s funny, Eve, earlier today, said that she almost felt incomplete without having you by her side. What a salute to the working relationship that you have.
Yeah, I said to her, how awkward would it be if, um, if Neighbours is nominated, and she gets nominated for most popular and the Gold, and I didn’t get anything. How awkward would she feel! [Laughs]
You were talking about the writing and all of the intensity of the recent seasons of Neighbours has really become so contemporary and so up-to-speed with what people are doing on cable and streaming. How have you enjoyed it as a long time actor on the series?
The recent storylines, they’ve been incredibly intense. Um, you know, we’ve gone through, you know, an amazing rollercoaster this year with the death of Sonya and then Dee coming back. So, you know, dead wife no longer dead, being fooled by her imposter, it’s just been a very intense ride for the last 12 months. So, um, I think I need some therapy! But’s nothing a silver Logie can’t fix! [Laughs]
I mean, it’s beautiful work, and especially the episode with you and Sonya. It must be really nice as an actor to tap into that even though it’s sad personally for you to lose Eve as an actress.
Yeah, we’re very lucky to be able to actually go to those places and you know, find those things and play with those things as well. It’s almost like you become a masochist and that kind of enjoy going into those deep dark realms. I mean, sometimes it’s quite hard to pull yourself out of it, but yeah, you kind of almost get excited to go, yeah, OK, let’s see how messed up we can make him. And then take the audience on that journey as well. I think probably the most important part of that at all is that ovarian cancer is actually a very real thing for a lot of people and to do justice to those people who have to deal with it and the survivors and their families and now you can’t do a soapy kind of performance for it. You can’t just kind of do a half-assed performance. It has to be something that resonates for them as well.
Eve and Ryan were co-stars for almost a decade.
Eve was saying that was her first thought, not to herself when she found out about the Gold nomination, but just to how much this can spread a good message out there and spread awareness out there for people with ovarian cancer.
Well they did the wear your ovaries for ovaries campaign, which was wearing your teal coloured undies over your thing, so maybe what do you think? We should see that on the red carpet! Teal-coloured undies over the top of our suits and everything. Yeah. We’ll give it a shot.
The 2019 TV WEEK Logie Awards will be held Sunday, June 30, at The Star Gold Coast in Queensland.
