Up-and-coming actor Alex Dimitriades won over hearts in the 1993 film The Heartbreak Kid, and a year later, series creators Michael Jenkins and Ben Gannon set out to further explore his teen character.
Soon enough, they were navigating the intertwined and complicated lives of students at the fictional Hartley High, played out in the hit series Heartbreak High.
The show would spawn a legion of fans and three decades later be rebooted on Netflix, thanks to the support of viewers who fell in love with the series’ daring – and moving – plot lines.
Speaking exclusively to Woman’s Day to celebrate the 30-year milestone, original cast members Salvatore Coco, 49, and Scott Major, 48, admit that while they knew they were involved in something special at the time, they never foresaw the legacy that the gritty series would hold on the Aussie psyche all these years later.
When it came to playing resident bad boy Rivers, Scott had to work hard to convince the creators to have him back.
ROLE OF A LIFETIME
“I had done the film, but for the show, they were casting far and wide and went to a lot of local high schools looking for people,” he recalls. “I was a bit cheeky – when I found out they were making the series, I pulled out the old crew list and I rang Ben Gannon and said, ‘Congrats on the film becoming a series, are you bringing Rivers back?’”
Scott admits that Ben was shocked by his direct, brazen questioning, and told him there would be no Rivers. “I was like, ‘C’mon, you need a bad guy! Someone to be the antithesis of Nick Poulos [played by Alex].’ About a week after that chat, I got a call and they said, ‘Do you want to move to Sydney?’ That was it!”
For Salvatore, who played the wheeling and dealing but always charming Con, he says even after countless auditions and securing a “truly amazing young cast”, he had no idea that the show would generate such a large fan base.
“I’ve got people from just about everywhere on Instagram, still writing in,” he explains. “It proves that what we did all those years ago is fantastic. It shows that people resonated with what we created and it played a major part of their lives, which really is incredible.”
Alongside a huge ensemble cast of young actors, Scott and Sal say becoming household names – and TV heartthrobs – was a lot to deal with.
“I didn’t leave my house at school times – if there were ever school buses around we would literally get mobbed,” recalls Scott.
“There was one time at Luna Park in Melbourne – the show was still in its infancy, ratings were just OK – and the cast was making an appearance. There were only three security guards for six cast members, and thousands and thousands of kids showed up and it got crazy,” he says.
“We got taken out and had to hide, they couldn’t get us out and it was getting quite dangerous. One of the publicists managed to flag down a cricket team in uniform and had them circle the cast by linking arms just to get us back to our cars!”
Sal realised the show was fast developing a die-hard fan base just days after the first episode had aired in 1994.
“I had a VW Beetle, a red little thing. I clearly remember driving in Randwick, and I stopped at a set of lights, to be greeted by a big bunch of screaming girls,” laughs Sal.
A NEW HEARTBREAK ERA
While some of us might have expected drama between takes from such a young cast, it’s clear that the set couldn’t have been a more kind, loving, place.
“It was truly like going to school every day! We had a drama coach, Nico Lathouris, who also played Nico’s dad on the original series. He had a real big influence on the way the show was shot as far as performances,” explains Scott. Sal agrees, noting Nico was very much a “father figure to the cast”.
In 2022, Scott signed on to Netflix’s new-look reboot of Heartbreak High as Rivers, now a proud father and no longer a “horrible, racist, sexist human being” as the actor had once described his character. While Scott was “ready” to once again step into Rivers’ shoes, he was apprehensive, too.
“The night before we shot [season one], I had this fear that I was going to screw it up. Like… what am I doing? I was a part of this iconic show, had this popular character, what if I ruin the legacy?” he says.
While Scott, alongside Isabella Gutierrez as Chaka, is one of only a few original cast members in the reboot, Sal admits that the resurgence in the show’s popularity gave him an opportunity to binge his seasons in their entirety.
“I only ever watched four episodes [of Heartbreak High] back then,” he confesses. “So when Netflix put the original up, I watched all my episodes in two weeks! And I understood what people were responding to back then. I was glued to it.”
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