90s soap star, 47 looks unrecognisable three decades years after TV fame and new career
Tempany Deckert, played Selina Cook on Home and Away for four years until 1998.
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After the actress moved on from Home and Away, she had some roles in other Aussie dramas such as, All Saints, and treaded the boards in theatre productions Down Under.
She decided to follow in the footsteps of her Home and Away co-stars, Melissa George and Isla Fisher, by moving to Los Angeles to try her luck in Hollywood.
While she has appeared in some films and TV shows over the years, Tempany has largely moved away from acting and her new career path couldn't any more different than her character Selina on the soap.
She teaches writing courses at UCLA, works as a motivation speaker and has published a massive 18 children's books.
Tempany based in Los Angeles for most of the year and in between sharpening young minds, she took time earlier this year to appear in season 4 of FOXTEL's prison drama Wentworth.
She also made a surprise appearance in the Emmy-award winning Netflix series, Dahmer, where she played a cop working the desk at a police station in one episode of the limited series.
Tempany opened up on quitting acting, saying it felt like she'd dodged a bullet.
"For me, I always wanted to give a really good turn at my writing, and I wanted to have children," Deckert told 7News in Australia.
"I knew that if I had children and I was working on sets, it was going to be very difficult. You are working many hours a day and you don't get to see them that much," she added.
"If I had gotten a bunch of jobs in Hollywood, I probably would have stayed the course because I love acting – but I probably wouldn't have gotten married and had kids."
The actress also runs writing courses for anyone who wants to follow in her footsteps, including one called Write a Novel, Change your Life.
She recently promoted an upcoming course on Instagram where she looked unrecognisable from her days playing Selina on Home and Away.
Wearing dark rimmed glasses and minimal make-up, Tempany promised some more courses were coming soon.
Tempany is also married to voice actor Brian Donovan and they share two children.
She became an American citizen in 2020, but said her dream would be to return to Australia.
"I'm trying to convince my Australian agent to get me a great job in Australia where we can move back for six months to a year," Deckert said.
"That's the dream – to convince the husband to move to Australia."
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