Chris Hemsworth watched her first screen kiss, now this star is back in Summer Bay

The last time Nicole da Silva set foot on the set of Home and Away, she was wearing a bikini. She shared a kiss with Jason Smith, while his friend, played by Chris Hemsworth, looked on from Sydney’s Palm Beach. Sadly, their characters’ romance didn’t extend beyond her one-day shoot.

Flash forward 20 years, and the ASTRA-award-winning Wentworth star makes her Summer Bay re-entrance once again on the beach. This time, she’s clad in a wetsuit, hair dripping from an ocean swim, when she encounters Alf Stewart (Ray Meagher). He remarks after their brief introduction: “She seems like a nice sheila”.

“Home and Away holds a special kind of nostalgia,” says da Silva, laughing. “It certainly does for me. I grew up watching it and it’s become synonymous with the Aussie identity. To be back on this show that has stood the test of time and continues to rate really strongly – and is, in essence, one of the backbones of this industry – it’s great to be a part of it.”

The new regular role of emergency department doctor Amelia Carlisle also appealed on a practical level. Based in Sydney, where she runs theatre and film production company Four One One, with her Wentworth co-star Danielle Cormack, da Silva is solo-parenting her daughter. “It’s important for me to be close to family and community, which a role on Home and Away meant I could do,” she says.

The intense hospital drama, evident from Dr Carlisle’s first episode (airing on Thursday), in which she treats the gunshot wound of a beloved Summer Bay resident, takes da Silva back to her All Saints days, when she played paramedic Sasha Fernandez in Seven’s medico series. She was to be memorably on the frontline again as tactical officer Stella Dagostino in Ten’s police drama Rush.

“There is crossover in how people in those locations tend to operate,” says da Silva. “So I have brought some of that experience to Amelia. I did a bit of research. I spoke to doctor friends. And I’m very grateful that we have a fantastic medical team on Home and Away. My whole focus is to do justice to the people I portray, so I’m wanting to make sure that I get things as correct and as close to the reality as possible. At the end of the day, we do have to make adjustments for the drama. But [authenticity] is always at the forefront of my mind.”

She predicts “some crossover” between the fan bases of Home and Away and Wentworth. In the Foxtel prison drama, da Silva played drug-dealing scallywag Franky Doyle (a role she is expected to reprise in the forthcoming spin-off) who romanced another inmate (Ra Chapman), and, scandalously, the prison shrink (Libby Tanner).

“It’s been relayed back to me that there’s been some excitement online about my joining the cast,” says da Silva. “And there’s been some guessing as to whose storylines I might be involved with. The fans are definitely keeping an eye out.”

Da Silva is sworn to secrecy about the rapid plot twists that emerge through the six episodes of Home and Away that are shot each week. But she will say this: “There’s some romance down the track. I won’t say who that’s with, but that’s been a lovely storyline to play out.”

Unlike the day she filmed her first “nervous” kiss in Summer Bay, this time there will be an intimacy co-ordinator on set.

“I’m very thankful for the introduction, in the last four to five years, of intimacy co-ordinators,” she says. “Back then, and certainly a lot of the roles I did after that point, we did not have them. Thankfully, the more experienced and sensitive directors are able to guide you through that.

“But to have a separate role for those kinds of scenes is really important, particularly for younger actors who are navigating that for the first time. It becomes a great way to explore what the physical language is between two characters. And it makes it all very safe and respectful, which is really important.”

Home And Away airs at 7pm, Monday-Thursdays on Seven.

Want more TV? We’ve got you.