Emily Symons said that life away from work in Australia felt far less exposed than her years on the British soap Emmerdale. In a PerthNow interview published on 25 July 2023, she described intense fan attention in the UK, a practical routine of work, dinner and school pickup in Australia, and the carers who helped her keep working. The interview was published ahead of the 2023 Logies, when she received her first nomination for Most Popular Actress for playing Marilyn Chambers on Home and Away.
What Symons said about fame in the UK and Australia
Symons’s comparison was personal, not a measurement of celebrity culture in either country. She said that when she was on Emmerdale, “there were 12 million viewers a night,” describing the scale of her British TV fame in the 2023 PerthNow interview. The figure is her account in that interview, not an independently verified audience statistic.
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She recalled fans waiting outside the studios and following cast members. “At Emmerdale it was very different. People would camp outside of studios. We had very loyal diehard fans following you around everywhere. You don’t have that here.” By contrast, she said, “When I am not at work I don’t really get recognised or acknowledged.”
In the same interview, Symons said Coronation Street and EastEnders had audiences of more than 10 million. Those, too, were figures she cited; the PerthNow story did not independently verify them. Her point was the contrast she experienced between her time working in British television and her relative privacy when off work in Australia—not that she had stopped acting or disowned her British career.
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How she described balancing work and parenting
Symons called her daily life “very simple” and described going home after work to make dinner or collect her son, Henry, from school. She said a nanny, carers and babysitters helped make that routine possible:
“I have an amazing nanny. They say it takes a village. I have a wonderful team of carers and babysitters and people that help me and make it all work and that’s what other working mums do.”
She also said, “Working families have to have a system in place so I am very grateful they allow me to go to work every day. Very privileged to have that.” Her comments describe her own circumstances at the time; the interview did not detail the arrangements or costs, or offer a general childcare prescription.
Her return to Home and Away
Symons is known to Australian audiences as Marilyn Chambers on Home and Away and to British soap viewers as Louise Appleton on Emmerdale. PerthNow reported in 2023 that she had spent seven years playing Louise and had returned to Home and Away for another stint. The article described her as having played Marilyn in three different decades and as having returned to the character for the preceding 13 years; those descriptions refer to the article’s 2023 timeframe.
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She said she had enjoyed her years in Britain but had come back to Australia, where her son was attending school. “I had a really fantastic time over there and a wonderful adventure but now that I am back … I have a child here, a little boy going to school here. This is where we will be for a while.” Symons described herself as half English and Australian-born and raised.
She also reflected on being able to revisit Marilyn over time: “The best thing for me is they never killed my character off so I have been allowed to revisit her in different decades of my life. This character has been very good to me and the show.”
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Why the interview was tied to the 2023 Logies
The PerthNow profile appeared in the lead-up to the 2023 Logies and reported Symons’s first nomination for Most Popular Actress for her work as Marilyn. A 7NEWS feature published on 29 July 2023 also described her as a nominee for the 2023 Silver Logie in that category. Symons said the recognition had surprised her: “I’ve never had any expectations. I’ve never considered that I would ever be nominated. It was so out of the blue. I was delighted.”
The nomination and the descriptions of her work and family life belong to that 2023 awards-season snapshot; they do not establish her current circumstances.
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Sources
- PerthNow, Andrei Harmsworth, 25 July 2023 — interview and profile.
- 7NEWS, Pip Christmass, 29 July 2023 — Logies nomination and career context.
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