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Interviews > Jessica Muschamp

A couple of months ago, we chatted to Jessica Muschamp about her time playing Neighbours' Sharon Davies. Here, she's back to tell us about her return to the show earlier this month and her hopes that it might not be the last we've seen of Sharon...

When we last chatted, you were keeping the secret that you'd already filmed another Neighbours return as Sharon. Were you surprised to be asked back?
Well, surprised doesn't even cover it. It doesn't even come close. I was absolutely over the moon. Basically, when it was announced the show was coming back, which is almost exactly a year ago, it was the best news. I actually thought it was a hoax at first until I saw Stefan, Jackie, Fletch and Ryan doing that piece that they released about the show coming back. So then I allowed myself to be very excited, and basically as soon as that was verified, I emailed Jason Herbison, Andrew Thompson and Shane Isheev, thanking them all again for having me on what was meant to be the finale episode. But mostly to congratulate them for being so brilliant and getting the show brought back and for all that that meant for the cast, the crew and the fans. It was an unprecedented and extraordinary save of a beloved show. Added to that, at the end of my email, I kind of put in a little ‘Hey, also remember, Sharon would love to come back’ kind of thing.

And then I periodically emailed them and phoned and left messages. I don't think it was too often, but my teenage daughter, who's very funny, said, ‘Mum, I think you're about one phone call away from a restraining order from Jason. I think maybe you need to tone it back a bit.’ So I remember on a Wednesday, I left a voicemail - they had emailed me back in that time and said we’ll keep you in mind, thank you for the praise, we can’t quite believe it’s coming back ourselves. Words to that effect. Anyway, so Wednesday I left a message for Jason, and then I kind of vowed that I would leave it for a while. And then Friday afternoon, I was checking my emails and I get an email from lovely casting director, Thea McLeod, a request to pencil me in for a couple of episodes later on in the year. And by penciling, I mean it's not confirmed yet, but they were working on the storylines and just figuring it out. And I just about fell off my chair and I was squealing and shrieking like a little two-year-old. And my kids all came running, they could tell from the tone of my voice that I was incredibly happy and excited.

Of course I told them what the news was, but we had to be pretty careful and not tell anyone else. So even when it was confirmed and contracts were signed, I was sworn to secrecy. So it was really just my mum and my children that knew. And yeah, surprised is an understatement. It was one of the best days ever, to be perfectly honest, just because I never thought I would see the day that Sharon would actually get to be back on Ramsay Street or in Erinsborough.

Apart from your brief cameo last year, you hadn't played Sharon for 33 years. Was it easy to find her voice again?
Yes, the writers made it very easy. In fact, when I first came back on set and I saw Stefan Dennis, who I hadn't seen in a while, he came over and he said, ‘Jess, I've just been reading your scenes and they've really caught her voice. The writers have really, really got Sharon's voice’. Considering a lot of the writers probably weren't even born when I was last there, they must have done their research on Sharon and her exploits that she got up to back in the day. Yeah, they captured her voice brilliantly.

Also in the cameo for Mel and Toadie’s wedding last year, they had written some fantastic comments that Sharon made to Melanie in her video message. They got cut for time, but those pieces of dialogue had snapped me right back into being Sharon back in July 2022. So it didn't feel that difficult to step into her shoes in May 2023, when we were filming those episodes. Yeah, Sharon's a part of me, you know, a very influential part of me from when I was very young. I'm not like her. I don't have her confidence and her brashness, but I love that she has that. She's just somewhere inside being dormant. So, no, it wasn't difficult to get her voice at all. And yeah, props to the writers for their amazing dialogue and scenes that they gave me.

How different is the Neighbours filming process these days compared to three decades ago? Is there anything that's still the same?
Yes, the early starts are still the same, or even earlier actually, than I remember. I think my earliest call was about 6.15. So that's an early start, and long days for those who have lots of scenes. I fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, didn't have heaps to do, so my days tended to be fairly quick.

Yeah, there's a lot that's different. The whole studio is Fremantle's and is devoted to Neighbours, including the backlot - it feels like what a US studio is like, where they have the exterior sets all in one place on a massive piece of land. And Fremantle have done an incredible job of replicating some of the backyards of the houses from Pin Oak Court so that we can use those for filming whenever we need to. Back in the 80s and 90s when I was originally doing it, if we ever needed access to the pool or the veranda or anything exterior, we had to get permission from the owners of the house to use their back gardens. Often it would be months in the organising and we couldn't do it for very long and it was constricted by all sorts of things. So now they've got the freedom to just film whenever they want to.

Same with filming at “Erinsborough High”; back then we had to hire a school and use it outside of school hours and it was in a separate location that we would go to. And we had to fit into the parameters of what the school would let us do. Nowadays, the school is at the Fremantle studios, so they have various different classrooms and offices and the lockers and the exteriors, they're all there. So they can just be used whenever they're needed and we don't have to travel anywhere, which is right on set. So that's really handy.

Lassiters has been re-imagined and is more modern than all those years ago - and the pool where I pushed Lucy famously back in the eighties is very different now. Yeah, the use of the of the exterior of the studio lot is very different. The other main difference, which felt really fantastic and mind-blowing to me was that they have two entire crews working everyday. In the eighties/nineties, we always had two crews, but we would film the exterior scenes three times per week and then the next week for the same episode we would film in the studio for 2-3 days.

During COVID, Neighbours was the first TV show in the world to work out a way go back into production during lockdowns. They worked out a very efficient way of having two sets, two crews, no crossover between them so if one group fell ill, they still had the other to keep shooting. It was brilliant, and I believe a lot of other shows around the world emulated their system. And those shows didn’t have Melbourne’s continuous lockdowns to contend with! And I guess Neighbours kept the same structure going now, not to keep people separate anymore but to have as streamlined and efficient and fast filming process as possible.

So that's different and feels really fancy actually having, you know, a whole studio dedicated to Neighbours and a whole piece of land being the backlot and being the location area. Back when I was there originally, we shared the studio. It was owned by Channel Ten and we shared it with the news and the current affairs programmes and the Saturday Morning kids programmes, and I think Comedy Company were there and various other shows that also used that studio space. So the Neighbours area was much smaller. Nowadays it's all Neighbours all the time, (just like it should be!)

How was the return pitched to you? Did they tell you much about the story before you received your scripts?
No, not at all. It was a big surprise, and I really liked that. Although I was very curious, of course, as we all were when we were waiting on the scripts, I knew that it would have something to do with Melanie, because I think they suggested that to me, and because I know Lucinda. She told me that although she's going back full time, she wasn't going back straight away, that there was a delay for her character to come back. And so they said it was something to do with Melanie coming back.

So I actually assumed I would have scenes with her, but I didn't because she wasn't back yet. But I had scenes with Jane, lovely Annie Jones, which was amazing. And I got to see Stefan, although I didn't have scenes with him. So I hope I get to go back and do some scenes with ‘Poison Paul’ at some point! So, yeah, I was absolutely beside myself, so excited, but I had no idea what I would be doing. It was good to get to work with the new Nell, the very lovely young actress Ayisha and briefly with Costa the nice young guy who plays Eden. And in a scene with delightful Shiv, who plays Haz. There was such a buzz about the place. It was so nice being back when everyone was feeling so positive and it was fresh and exciting.

What did you think of Sharon's return story?
As I said, I didn't know what to expect, apart from thinking that I would have scenes with Melanie, just because she, Jane and Paul were the only links to Sharon from the old days. I liked the storyline - I liked that Sharon was showing her caring side. I probably would have liked to have known a bit more about where she's been all these years and what she's been doing. Obviously, she left in back in 1990, following Bronwyn and Henry to New Zealand, so it would be nice to know if she still lives over there or if she's based back in Australia.

But actually they did have a character breakdown in the script when we got it, to kind of catch people up on who Sharon is, and that talked about some of her back story. But it also said that she'd had an inheritance because her father died and they sold the farm in Narrabri. With her inheritance, she bought a little house not far from Ramsay Street. So I actually really like that, because it makes me think that she'll be able to pop back in and visit again from time to time. That would be really nice.

Look, I'm an actor and we always want more. Whatever the script is, we always want to be the lead role! So yeah, I would have loved to have had some more scenes and done some more stuff with some various other actors that I haven't worked with before, but I was pretty happy with what they wrote for me. As I said earlier, they really, really hit Sharon's voice very, very well. There were a couple of scenes that were cut down for time from the last episode I was in. There was the scene in the Coffee Shop with Haz, where I make a kind of offhand comment to him about burning the place down once in the past - his face was just a classic. It was pretty funny, but I'm hoping that maybe we can get to do that again another time. And with the scene that I was in with Jane outside the tram cafe. Jane is talking about how Paul has upset her, and Sharon's like ‘let's get revenge on Paul. I would be up for being part of that’. It was just a funny line to connect Shaz back to the days where she really just did not like Paul at all. So yeah, hopefully next time I'll get a chance to bring that to fruition and maybe even have scenes with Paul.

The main thing that I really want to know is how Sharon knows Eden, because that didn't get explained to me and I still don't know. I'm actually not sure if it does get mentioned or not, or if we have yet to find that out down the track some time.