Lynne McGranger on the fan response to her Home and Away exit

Home and Away actress Lynne McGranger reacts to the fan response to her exit from the show.

Video transcript

It’s, um, very rewarding.

I really wanted, um, Irene to go out, and we still don’t know exactly how she leaves, of course, um, but I wanted the lead up to her exit to be something that could be, um, you know, experienced by the audience as well.

I feel like the whole Alzheimer’s dementia thing hasn’t really been touched on or dealt with much on Australian television, because it is a sensitive subject.

And I just think the writers and the producers have done such, an honourable job with it, have really treated it with, with delicacy and with honesty.

And that’s what we wanted to do.

And since, you know, I met a lady yesterday who was 78, and she’s just been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, and that comes under the dementia banner, which I only found out like a year or so ago, cause my cousin in England has Parkinson’s.

And um, she’s just so alert and got, you know, just amazing, but she was, she loves the show and she, we talked and she held my hand and we chatted, and it was just lovely to see the kind of joy that she exuded knowing that, you know, where she was in life was being dealt with in on, uh, you know, in an honourable fashion.

And um, that gladdened my heart and I’m so proud of our writers, and so, I mean, you know, in an ideal world, I would have been hit by a bus outside the diner and it would have been all over Red Rover, and maybe I’ll be in the coffin knocking on the door going, oh I haven’t gone yet.

But you know, they were never going to do that, and I’m so proud of um the fact that I’ve been able to tell this story um with of course the help of the, the genius writers, and I’m not just saying that because I’ll probably read this or or see this or hear this, but they are, the fact that they can keep, um, you know, keep a, a, a being like Home and Away afloat and buoyant for so long, and still bring new innovation to it and, and be brave enough to tackle a story as potentially delicate as something like Alzheimer’s.