.
Guest Character Profiles > Richie Amblin Lach Millar

Richie Amblin 2019, 2020, 2021, 2023
Occupation: Student at Erinsborough High and Eden Hills Uni

When teacher Elly Conway found herself being targeted by student Richie Amblin, concerning her dramatic failed wedding to Mark Brennan and the recent return of Finn Kelly, her friend Chloe Brennan stepped in and tried to get the taunting to stop. Unfortunately, Chloe's attempts to embarrass Richie in front of his friends ended badly when Richie then pointed out that he knew all about another incident - Elly had bought alcohol for student Dean Mahoney earlier that year, when he had threatened to reveal to Elly's partner Mark that he wasn't the father of her baby. It wasn't long before word was all around the school, and although Elly explained that she hadn't actually given the alcohol to Dean in the end, she was forced to make a public apology.

A few weeks later, Richie plucked up the courage to ask newcomer Mackenzie Hargreaves to the school dance, only for her to explain that she wasn't going to be around for long, as she was just visiting family. When Mackenzie then revealed to Yashvi Rebecchi that she was trans, Richie overheard them talking about it in a classroom. Aware that someone had overheard them, it wasn't long before Yashvi worked out that it was Richie, angrily confronting him, before accidentally outing Mackenzie to everyone in earshot. With transphobic graffiti appearing in the school in the aftermath, Mackenzie was warned against using the girls' toilets, and she feared that this was going to end the same way as it had at her last school - with her forced to leave as the bullying became too much. With Mackenzie being told to use the disabled toilets, a protest broke out amongst the more supportive students, who all started lining up to use the disabled toilets too, and both Yashvi and Mackenzie were surprised when Richie joined them, against the wishes of his friend, Ollie Sudekis.

As Mackenzie started to settle in, she and Richie, along with their friends Harlow and Hendrix, spent Halloween together at Lassiters Lake. There, they held a séance to try and contact Kate Ramsay, who had been shot and died at the lake a few years earlier. As they began the séance, a previously confident Richie became scared when a random gun shot noise started going off, and he quickly ran away, unaware that the gun shots were actually a sound effect on Hendrix's phone.

With Richie and Mackenzie an official couple, he surprised her on her 18th birthday with a terrible poem and, a few weeks later, he attended the Lassiters Pride event with her, where he met her father, Grant, for the first time. Things progressed further for them when Mackenzie went for her gender affirmation surgery, telling Richie that she didn't want him at the hospital, saying that he should go to Hendrix's 18th birthday party instead. The party went badly for Richie when Ollie turned up and started taunting him about Mackenzie's surgery, saying it was 'Mackenzie's loss and Richie's gain', so Richie decided to go to the hospital and support her instead. When Mackenzie found out that he'd only turned up because of what Ollie had said, she was upset, reminding him that the surgery was her decision and nobody else's. When Richie later went to apologise to Mackenzie before her surgery, he ended up telling her that he loved her for the first time, something that she repeated back to him as she was wheeled away to the operating room. Richie then continued to visit her for the next week in hospital, and again as soon as she returned home, gifting her with flowers each time - though his presence at the house caused some unexplained tension with Mackenzie's surrogate dad, Shane Rebecchi.

Soon after, Richie masterminded a recycling project at the school which ended badly when drugs were found amongst the rubbish, with Ollie the prime suspect as the person who was dealing at Erinsborough High. With Ollie facing serious charges, Richie was one of the only people who believed his claims that he was innocent. Having found out that Shane was being erratic, and had disappeared from town suddenly, just days before his wedding anniversary, Richie searched Shane's backpack and found a small bag of drugs, the same type of bag that had been found at the school. It then emerged that Richie had given Shane - who was struggling to juggle work, family life and uni - some of his ADHD meds earlier that year, during the Lassiters Pride event, but had said no when Shane had come back to him for more. With Shane having moved on to harder drugs and struggling with addiction, Mackenzie was horrified by the role her boyfriend had played in it all. Hoping that he might be able to win her over, Richie decided to put Mackenzie's name down for the upcoming Youth Councillor election and even ran a smear campaign against Mackenzie's best friend and rival, Harlow.

As Richie and Hendrix got further involved in the developing war between Mackenzie and Harlow, it all paled in comparison when corrupt police detective Dax Braddock was revealed as the mastermind behind the recent flood of drugs into the area. Having been unmasked, he panicked and took Mackenzie, Richie and school principal Susan Kennedy hostage in a classroom, with Richie being hit with a baton and Mackenzie being tasered as they tried to escape. As they both recovered in hospital, word came through that Mackenzie had won the election. Richie apologised for his behaviour, both with Shane and for playing dirty during the election, and Mackenzie agreed to give their relationship another try.

Later in the year, Richie and Mackenzie marked their first anniversary as a couple, and he brought up the subject of them sleeping together, something they'd spoken about and decided against when they first got together. With Mackenzie realising that she might now be ready, they made plans but, with their exams happening at the same time, she asked Richie if they could wait. He agreed, and suggested that they could try again during schoolies, when there would be less stress and pressure. However, as plans got underway for schoolies, Mackenzie admitted to Roxy Willis that she wasn't sure about sleeping with Richie anymore, but was worried that he'd break up with her if she didn't. Unfortunately, her worries only got worse as Shane and Dipi's marriage suffered, with Dipi admitting to having an affair with Hendrix's father, Pierce. A desperate Shane then ended up almost taking Richie's ADHD medication after seeing it in his bag, and when Mackenzie heard about this, she angrily reminded Richie of the part he'd played in causing Shane's drug problem in the first place. The following day, Mackenzie apologised to Richie, admitting that the strength of her feelings was actually about something else - that she wasn't ready to sleep with him yet. When fellow student Corinne Booth overheard their conversation, she later approached Richie at Harold's, suggesting that she was available if Richie ever got tired of Mackenzie.

As the gang prepared to go to schoolies, Richie seemed to be preoccupied with something on his phone, and was annoyed when Corinne continued to approach him, suggesting that Mackenzie wouldn't sleep with him because she was trans. After lying to Mackenzie that Corinne was just talking to him about exams, she was horrified to find out the truth, saying that he was welcome to sleep with Corinne if he wanted to, before she and Harlow announced that they were pulling out of the schoolies trip. Richie and Hendrix then went to the campsite, along with Jay and Ollie, where Hendrix found out about an app that Ollie and Richie had been looking at - The Ladder, which allowed the boys to rank the girls after sleeping with them. Though most of the girls were unaware of it, some, like Corinne, were actually trying to sleep with guys to improve their ranking. Hendrix was disgusted, and Richie admitted that he wasn't comfortable with it either, and had lied on the app about sleeping with Mackenzie to try and get people to stop talking about her. When Shane and Pierce found out about the app, they said that the school would need to be informed, and that Richie would need to come clean to Mackenzie before she found out from someone else. Disgusted by what Richie had done, and the fact that he'd broken her trust again, she ended things with him - this time for good.

A few months later, both studying at Eden Hills Uni, Mackenzie and Richie bumped into each other, realising that they'd be in a class together. When Hendrix found out what had happened, he contacted Richie, who admitted that he'd deliberately signed up to the same class as Mackenzie, hopeful that they could spend some time together and get some kind of friendship back. Hendrix decided to report this back to Mackenzie, who told Richie that she wanted nothing to do with him. Unfortunately, they'd been randomly paired together on an assignment about defamation and, not wanting the tutor to see her in a negative light by asking to change partners, she went along with it. As the topic of the assignment brought up bad memories of their break-up, Richie told her how their time apart had made him see how badly he'd behaved, and that he hoped that she could forgive him one day. Having decided that she was finally able to forgive him, Mackenzie met up with Richie the following week to go over their project, but she was distracted by the news that Shane and Dipi, having patched things up, were planning to move to Sydney. As they chatted, Richie and Mackenzie both felt a spark again, but when they met later, and he brought it up, she told him that she needed to move on from him and they could never be more than friends.

A few years later, Richie was one of many former students and teachers who attended a protest over the planned closure of Erinsborough High. Richie was busy telling a group of younger students about the time they'd protested over Mackenzie being made to use the disabled toilets, when the security guards caught up with them. Richie decided to lie down on the ground to stop them from removing him, only to find himself being dragged out of the building by his feet.

A few weeks later, after learning that Richie and Mackenzie used to date, Holly Hoyland invited him to a Christmas party being held at 32 Ramsay Street. Holly contacted Richie and told him that Mackenzie would be delighted if he turned up, but this was a lie, and she was actually hoping that Richie would provide a distraction for Mackenzie from Haz, Holly's boyfriend. Holly knew that Mackenzie had feelings for Haz, and was worried that he felt the same way about her, but the plan backfired when, after enjoying spending time with Richie, Mackenzie was stunned when he tried to kiss her. He explained that Holly had contacted him and he'd hoped that he and Mack could be more than friends again. Mack insisted that there'd never be anything like that between then again, before rushing off to confront Holly about her actions. As they argued over the situation, Mackenzie stormed off, leaving Holly as she fell into the pool, unaware that her dress was caught on the Christmas tree that was in the water and that she was unable to get out.

Trivia Notes
• The character of Richie also appeared in the 2019 spin-off, Neighbours: Erinsborough High
• The actor playing Richie was credited as Lachlan Millar in 2019, as Lachie Millar in 2020 and 2021, and as Lach Millar in 2023

Episodes Featured
8159, 8161, 8183, 8188, 8193, 8224, 8304, 8324, 8360, 8378, 8398, 8404, 8410, 8415, 8425, 8433, 8434, 8435, 8436, 8437, 8443, 8444, 8445, 8448, 8483, 8487, 8488, 8491, 8492, 8497, 8498, 8499, 8568, 8575, 8581, 8948, 8960