“We broke up with the show. We said goodbye to it. We mourned the loss of the show. That was such a big process. To go back on that was a big deal for all of us, we all had individual situations. Ultimately, we’re back”.
And we couldn’t be happier. Matty Wilson, better known to Neighbours fans as Aaron Brennan returns to the show next week alongside on-screen husband, David Tanaka. Matty had one of the more challenging returns to the show, as shortly after Neighbours finished filming in mid-2022, he relocated with his family to the Gold Coast in Queensland, over 1,000 miles north of Ramsay Street.
We sat down with Matty and Takaya Honda, who plays David, to discuss cancellation, resurrection and their decision to return to Erinsborough.
In early 2022, the cast, crew, creative team and millions of fans around the world learned the news that Neighbours was at risk, after Channel 5 announced they were dropping the show and removing their funding. Matty recalls what it felt like as the axe hung over their heads.
“When it was announced the show was going to wrap up , we knew there was a constant search. If anyone wants to pick up the show, now’s your time. And every day we had a little bit of hope. It never came. We saw every single person in that building cry”.
Like many of the show’s cast and all of the fans, the two actors found out about the show’s return one day in November when Amazon dropped a video on social media starring Ryan Moloney, Stefan Dennis, Jackie Woodburne and Alan Fletcher.
“We had no inkling that the show would be coming back.” recalls Takaya Honda, who had played David Tanaka since 2016. “The day it was announced a message went around the cast and we were like, ‘No!’. I thought it was just someone who had told someone who had told someone…. and it’s not really a real thing. So we were quite blindsided by it.”
The show’s cancellation had an effect on Takaya and everyone else involved with the show.
“Psychologically it was quite an intense thing. We had to grieve the show, we had to grieve our characters. The fact we wouldn’t have an opportunity to play them again.”
It was December 2022, the month after the show’s return was announced, that Matty and Takaya were approached. The two then started talking to each other about the possibility of returning to the show.
“One of the reasons we came back is because we were pitched the storyline, beyond Flashback week, and it gave us really fun things come back and play with.” Takaya recalls. “We didn’t want the characters to come back and be in the background. We wanted to have something important to do and this story really kicks off with a bang! It hits the ground running at a really fast pace and it hasn’t slowed down. The audience is going to go on a really fun ride and they’re not gonna get how big the snowball is going to continue to get.”
Matty continues “There’s some pretty explosive scenes, coming back to Ramsay Street. It really kicks off with a bang. Jason Herbison (the show’s Executive Producer for the last 10 years) is the master puppeteer. He’s always got such an incredible mind for story. He pitched us this storyline which goes on for a long time and we’re all really excited about that.
The moment you get the scripts and you open them up, it’s like you’re opening up Jason’s mind, seeing what he’s got in store. His brain is incredible when he starts talking about story.”
But returning to Neighbours wasn’t the easy decision you might expect. Matty, of course, now lived on the other side of the country, but Takaya was still living close to the studios in Melbourne with his wife Amy, but had other things to consider. A soap on a streaming platform is a relatively new thing and no one truly knew if it would work.
“It’s a big deal for us to be given the opportunity to do that again and so to have the possibility of that being taken away as well and having to go through that whole process again, it affects you more than either of us really felt, leading up to the end of the show last year. The aftermath was far more affecting than either of us really understood.
Whilst it seems obvious that we want to be back, there is hesitation in your body because you just went through something that was incredibly fatiguing, incredibly affecting. So there’s more to it than just ‘Do you want to be on TV again.'”
Luckily for fans, both decided to return to the show and David and Aaron’s backstory, what they have been up to since we last saw them was crafted, along with their return to Erinsborough.
We asked them what it was like returning to the studios, was it just like putting on a comfortable pair of shoes, or, in Matty’s case, one of Aaron’s comfortable, signature Hawaiian shirts.
“The endless party shirts!” Takaya laughed.
Matt remembered back to the final day of filming, after wrapping the final scenes, he approached the Head of Costume. ” I asked him if he wanted me to get changed after this. He goes ‘Nah’, so we took our clothes home with us. When we came back I was worried I was going to have to give them back… that was my biggest concern!”
Takaya had a surreal experience on his first day back filming, his first scene being on Ramsay Street, a scene set the day after Toadie and Melanie’s wedding, the event that was the centrepiece of the show’s 2022 finale.
“So, it’s the next day and we are cleaning up Ramsay Street. There’s April, Bonnie, Jodi… and I was like ‘This is strange, we have jumped a year but we are filming the next day, it was mind-boggling’.”
The pair have been back filming for a few months now, but their return was only officially announced yesterday, meaning they had to keep a big secret for a long while, or at least one of them had to keep a big secret.
“I couldn’t help myself,” said Matty “I needed to tell people so if I ever bumped into someone at the supermarket who was a Neighbours fan, they would ask ‘Are you coming back?’ and I’d be straight into it, ‘Yes, I am, it’s a secret though, so don’t tell anyone’.”
Takaya took secret keeping a little more seriously. “It’s been an interesting time trying to figure out how to keep this quiet but still make it look like, on social media, we have lives. Because when we are filming we don’t often have lives!”
There is a lot about David & Aaron’s story that Matty and Takaya are not allowed to discuss just yet. Why did they feel the need to leave? All that we know so far is that they moved to the country after Paul jilted Terese at the altar, but there must be more to it than that.
“David made the decision that he was leaving Erinsborough to escape the whirlwind that is Paul Robinson and everything that comes with it.” says Takaya. On returning “He is very much not onboard with the idea of getting swept up into that and especially having Isla caught up in that as well. He doesn’t want anything to do with Erinsborough.”
But something happens during Flashback week that forces David and Aaron to return to see Paul. Will Paul learn his lesson after losing a relationship with yet another of his children? Takaya is not so sure.
“I feel if Paul Robinson hasn’t learnt a lesson in the 38 years of the show, I don’t know if he’s gonna start. But, maybe, we’ll see. There’s going to be a long road with what’s happened between David and Paul. Whether they become family again, that is a question that is asked for a long time.”
Matty continues “We call him Redemption Robinson, because the character always gets redeemed and never learns a lesson. Not once.”
Both Takaya and Matty seem overjoyed to be back at Neighbours. It is clear that the 2022 cancellation was tough on them, but they are truly hopeful for the future of the show. Takaya is impressed with the new batch of cast and crew that he now gets to work alongside.
“I’m blown away by how committed this new cast are. Everyone’s there trying to make the best show possible and is willing to go that little extra bit to achieve that. There’s some phenomenal performances coming up very shortly by some of the new cast. I can’t wait for the audience to be in love with them as much as I am.
Takaya goes on to discuss the impact that the temporary loss of Neighbours had on the Australian creative industries.
“Like I said prior to the show ending, the industry was going to suffer, for sure, not having Neighbours in it. So all of the jobs that are created by the show, the starts that people get in the industry that happen on this show are so important. outside of it being great for the audience and that fans that are getting to enjoy these stories and characters again, it is brilliant for the industry. It’s brilliant for the hundreds of jobs that are created because this show exists.”
We are so excited to see what part David and Aaron have to play in Paul Robinson’s intricate web of lies and how this affects the Robinson family and the rest of Erinsborough, hopefully for many more years to come.
Neighbours Tell-All Flashback Week begins on Monday 13th November, with new episodes dropping at 7am, Monday to Thursday on Amazon Freevee and Amazon Prime Video.