Home and Away

‘I didn’t know how to unpack the pain’: Home and Away star on facing teenage trauma

Posted on by Franki
“I didn’t know how to unpack the pain, so I’d mask it,” Stevenson says of his inward struggles while at the height of his fame. “I had to hide those demons that were inside.”
“I didn’t know how to unpack the pain, so I’d mask it,” Stevenson says of his inward struggles while at the height of his fame. “I had to hide those demons that were inside.”Kristoffer Paulsen

Huddled around their drinks, trying to stay warm in a corner of the rambling ­heritage hotel on an icy Saturday night in June, the group of otherwise nondescript middle-aged men and women barely receive a glance, let alone an inquisitive stare, from the other patrons. But back in the 1990s, when Home and Away was a hit TV soap, Mat Stevenson, Nicolle Dickson, Greg Benson, Sharyn Hodgson, Adam Willits and Les Hill were mobbed at shopping centres around the country.