Tammin Sursok has five year work plan before coming home

[**Julie**]

Tammin Sursok has five year work plan before coming home

Herald Sun

May 13 2009

TAMMIN Sursok is apologetic when she gets on the phone. She has a sore behind after learning how to ride a horse for a new role, some scrapes after falling off a skateboard and she is exhausted. But she is delighted to hear an Australian voice.

“I am so sorry, we were up at 4am or something like that,” the former Home And Away darling and recording artist says in her now distinct American accent.

But while she sounds American, the accent is all for show. It soon becomes clear the South African-born and Sydney-raised star has sacrificed a lot to get ahead in Hollywood but hasn’t lost sight of what she holds dear.

“I love my family and I miss them so much, we are very tight-knit,” she says.

Her determination, however, has paid off with several movie roles and a three-year contract on popular soap opera The Young And The Restless.

Sursok, 25, has come a long way from Dani Sutherland, the character she played for four years on Home And Away. She then launched a musical career with her album Whatever Will Be Will Be.

Describing the life of an entertainer as a wonderful but crazy job, Sursok has a five-year plan to forge a high-profile career abroad before returning to Australia to start a family.

Although she refused to be drawn on the identity of the filmmaker she has been dating for two years, Sursok does admit home is where the heart is.

“I am going to raise my children in Australia,” she says. “I am going to work hard and bring home the bacon and have my six kids in Australia. I want a brood. I want them to be in rugby teams.

“In five years’ time I would like to be on the trajectory of my film and TV career and would probably like to have my first child at 30.”

Sursok is talking from Kamloops, a Canadian town in the Rocky Mountains about four hours’ drive from Vancouver, and a place she describes as difficult to locate on the map.

She is in Canada to film her first major movie role, in the coming-of-age Flicka 2. She also worked there last year, shooting the Nickelodeon telemovie Spectacular!, which premieres on Australian pay-TV this week.

But she admits the life of a roving actor can get lonely.

“Oh, it definitely does,” she says.

“You don’t know who your friends are. I have a handful of friends and I love them to death.

“There are three in Vancouver and five in Australia, that’s all you really need.

“It’s hard to keep going in this industry when you get so many rejections. I just plod along.”

Sursok says she has matured in the two years since moving from Sydney to Los Angeles.

“I know a lot more about who I am and what I will be able to put up with. I think sometimes you become a lot softer when you’re on your own. I feel gentler now. It’s a different feeling, you want to fight hard but it’s because you want to go home.”

Switching from playing troubled Colleen on The Young And The Restless to preppy schoolgirl Courtney in Spectacular!, a made-for-TV movie that follows an all-singing, all-dancing choir hellbent on beating its arch rival act, it is clear Sursok is comfortable with diverse character choices.

With her appealing to a wide range of fans, Sursok says she feels a duty as a public figure to present a good image.

“With the background I had in Australia it’s important for me to be a role model,” she says.

“I want the kids back there to know that the Aussies who go out and make movies think about what the moral is to the stories.

“I think we are all role models, especially those in the entertainment industry.”

Spectacular!, Saturday, Nickelodeon (Pay-TV), 6.30pm

[-Kevin-]

I hope everything goes well for Tammin and I wish her all the best for the future

[Eli]

I too hope everything goes well for her, she really deserves it! And totally off topic, but I love the fact that not only does this movie have Tammin in it (as well as being a sequel to the one with Ryan Kwanten in it) it's being filmed in Kamloops as well. By far one of my favourite cities