‘Nothing glamorous about shooting sex scenes!' Former Home And Away star Sarah Roberts addresses reality of on-screen sex
Former Home And Away actor Sarah Roberts says shooting sex scenes on a TV set is in 'no way glamorous', as she confirms she has found love again after her high-profile divorce from ex-husband, James Stewart.
In a new interview with the Stellar podcast, Something To Talk About, Roberts discusses the role intimacy co-ordinators play in racy scenes – and how it's nothing like real sex.
As she unveils Make It Look Real (a documentary about the topic), Robert recalls one instance where 'there weren't any crazy sex scenes; they were more kissing scenes with an actor that I hadn't worked with before,' Roberts tells Something To Talk About, in a new episode out today.
'It was about, 'How are we going to film this kiss? Do you want to use tongue? Do you not want to use tongue? Where are you going to put your hands? Where should I put my hands?'
Listen to Sarah Roberts on the Stellar podcast, Something To Talk About, below:
'There's absolutely nothing glamorous about shooting intimate sex scenes or kissing scenes in front of a massive crew,' she adds.
'My first kissing scene on Home And Away was with my now ex-husband [James Stewart, whom she married in 2019].
'No-one had walked us through what we were doing. It's hard. Having an intimacy co-ordinator just make it all so much cleaner; it takes the stress away.'
Meantime, after a turbulent period of her life – including the loss of her beloved brother in 2019 and her divorce from Stewart last year – Roberts has some happy news: she's found love again.
'I love two people now: I've finally found a love for myself, which I know now in retrospect I didn't have for so long,' Roberts told Something To Talk About.
'I am still finding myself, but I have beaten myself up for a long time because I stayed in something that wasn't healthy. But now I have found this love for myself – and also fallen in love with a man. I'm so in love.'
The actor and DJ also revealed she used to be a 'yes girl' with 'absolutely no boundaries.'
'Now that I'm 40, I look back on my life so far and it would have been great to have some boundaries and some respect for myself as well,' she said reflectively.
'I would sometimes bend over backwards so far that I would break my back and I got very sick for a moment in time.
'Now I feel very confident walking onto sets. I feel more confident in my day-to-day life as well in relationships. I know what I'll stand and what I won't stand for.'
Listen to Sarah Roberts on the Stellar podcast, Something To Talk About, below:
In terms of her personal life, Roberts and Stewart met in 2017 on the set of Home and Away and married two years later. Stewart is now dating his co-star, Ada Nicodemou.
Speaking to Stellar, Roberts said it was difficult to navigate heartbreak and her marriage breakdown in the public eye.
'I imagine dealing with a divorce is hard enough,' she said. 'Dealing with it all in the spotlight – and then everything that came out in the media after – absolutely ripped my heart in a million little pieces,.'
Listen to the full interview with Sarah Roberts on the latest episode of the Stellar podcast, Something To Talk About, wherever you get your podcasts. See the shoot with her inside the latest issue of Stellar, out in the Sunday papers today.
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I found it a little bit difficult to get to sleep because I was thinking, well what I've got to do, what I've got to organise in the morning. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: This is Lee's first cigarette with her sister and niece in a while. LUANA, LEE'S SISTER: That's not a bad thing for keeping you calm and that, isn't it? When you're stressed, it's not a bad thing, is it? LEE: No. They should give it to everyone in hospital! AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: The 49-year-old has been staying in one of Liverpool Hospital's mental health wards. CHANTELLE BEUSTER, LEE'S NIECE: Lee, she's funny. She's got a great sense of humor, she's clever. She's very smart. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: Chantelle says the system has failed Lee. Like many others, she's been repeatedly discharged well before she is ready, resulting in a cycle of quick deterioration and re-admission. CHANTELLE BEUSTER, LEE'S NIECE: Yeah, it's all about beds. 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AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: Today they're heading down the NSW coast to see the unit Lee will be living in when she's discharged in a couple of weeks. LEE: Oh wow! How pretty Luana! AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: Is that you? LUANA, LEE'S SISTER: That's when she was in the army. CHANTELLE BEUSTER, LEE'S NIECE: Lee's mental health stems from trauma. I think there's a lot of underlying causes that have triggered her and still trigger her at the moment. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: Lee knows she's fortunate to have a place to live. Many who are discharged have nowhere to go. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: What could help people? LEE: I think at least six months' accommodation offered for sure. And that can give them the time to build up bond and clothing and transport and mobile. And so they could build up the support services and after six months, then they get transported to where they got to go next. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: So, Lee, how are you feeling about staying here tonight? LEE: I'm wrapped, I'm wrapped. LEE: Give me a hug. I'm so happy. I'm so happy! AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: This is the first time Lee will be living alone in 15 years. CHANTELLE BEUSTER, LEE'S NIECE: Lee was so social and had all these friends and she's vibrant and she's beautiful and she lost all that. So, sorry, can we stop for a sec? CHANTELLE BEUSTER, LEE'S NIECE: She could have lived a functioning life if we would've done something 20 years ago. And they keep bringing her in and letting her go. And each time her relapses are worse, each time she can get more aggressive, she's either gonna get hurt, someone else is gonna get hurt. And then as family you have to sit back and wonder, like, what is going to happen? And it's a scary thought. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: We reached out to our audience to hear your experience of getting help for serious mental illness in NSW. We were flooded with responses. We've protected the identity of these people for the privacy of their loved ones. FATHER 1: My daughter is kind and smart and she's very creative. SISTER: My brother Luke was an introvert, gentle and creative. Luke had self-presented multiple times with suicide ideation and a plan. This should have been a major alarm. FATHER 2: The day before her final discharge from the psych ward, she said to me, I can't wait to get out of here so I can kill myself. I told the doctors exactly what she had said, but they discharged her the next day. FATHER 1: In my daughter's most recent admission to a Sydney hospital, she was again discharged without further direction provided for her care. As soon as she got home that afternoon from being discharged, she went to her room and attempted suicide. We later found out that the trigger for this suicide attempt was despair, her despair at being sent home again. FATHER 2: Twice I pleaded with them to admit her, explained how unwell she was. Each time she was discharged after a few hours. And days later, she was dead. SISTER: After he died, a serious adverse investigation was held identifying multiple systemic failures that contributed to Luke ultimately taking his own life. FATHER 2: There were a sea of red flags that were ignored, overlooked or minimised. Alice was a beautiful, kind and caring person who could have lived a long, happy and productive life with the right treatment and help. SISTER: Luke, like so many others, deserved better. TEXT ON SCREEN: 958 people are believed to have died by suicide in NSW in 2024. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: The NSW Government acknowledges the system is in need of improvement and reform. But it has zeroed in on the psychiatrist resignations, framing it as an unreasonable pay grab. ROSE JACKSON, NSW MENTAL HEALTH MINISTER, 20 JANUARY 2025: Their solution to this challenge is a 25% wage increase in a single year. That's not something the government is able to agree to. We have to think about the broad, not just mental health system, but overall state budget. DR PRAMUDIE GUNARATNE, NSW CHAIR, ROYAL AUST. & NZ COLLEGE OF PSYCHIATRISTS: I appreciate that doctors earn more than the average wage, but what we are talking about is how do we recruit and retain senior doctors in the current environment that we are in? AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: Even with a 25% pay rise, first year psychiatrists in NSW would still be among the lowest paid in the country. DR ANU KATARIA, CONSULTANT PSYCHIATRIST: There's a lot of money to be made in private practice, much, much more than the public system could ever offer. For most doctors, I would say for every doctor in the public system, greed is not a driver. It's a passion and a belief in what you do. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: Even before the resignations, NSW Health has been covering shortages with temporary staff called locums and Visiting Medical Officers, or VMOs, on high rates. ROSE JACKSON, NSW MENTAL HEALTH MINISTER, 30 JANUARY 2025: So VMOs do have a higher cost as premium labour, although they also don't have access to various leave and other superannuation arrangements. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: The government's own figures show a 25-percent pay increase for psychiatrists would cost around 30-million dollars each year. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: The government won't tell us how much it's spent on temporary staff since the resignations, but job ads for locum positions show rates of more than 3-thousand dollars a day… DR PRAMUDIE GUNARATNE, NSW CHAIR, ROYAL AUST. & NZ COLLEGE OF PSYCHIATRISTS: The government, on the one hand is willing to spend exorbitant amounts of money to get less quality care, to get contract labour. But then in the same hand, they're saying that they can't afford to provide an allowance to recruit and retain permanent staff. So it really doesn't make sense that they can't afford to do this. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: In response to the pay request, the government proposed a six-month efficiency trial, followed by a counter pay rise offer. ROSE JACKSON, NSW MENTAL HEALTH MINISTER, 20 JANUARY 2025: We have put our own proposition on the table and my view is that it's really reasonable. It is not just the 4.5% increase that we've already paid, it's 10 ½ percent over the next three years. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: Ministers and psychiatrists were deadlocked and the NSW Government referred the case to the referee for workplace disputes. ROSE JACKSON, NSW MENTAL HEALTH MINISTER, 20 JANUARY 2025: We are urgently seeking the intervention of the Industrial Relations Commission to resolve that. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: Four Corners offered the NSW Mental Health Minister Rose Jackson numerous opportunities to be a part of this story. She refused. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: The department put up the state's most senior mental health bureaucrat, Chief Psychiatrist Dr Murray Wright. Contrary to the government's position, he revealed to us he does support the 25% pay rise. DR MURRAY WRIGHT, NSW CHIEF PSYCHIATRIST: I am sympathetic to the issues that they raise, and I think in particular the disparity in wages between New South Wales and other states. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: So are you supportive of that pay rise? DR MURRAY WRIGHT, NSW CHIEF PSYCHIATRISTS: Yes. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: The problems are also endemic at Sydney's largest hospital, the Royal Prince Alfred or RPA. In her decade there, Dr Suzy Goodison worked across the hospital, including the emergency department. DR SUZY GOODISON, CONSULTANT PSYCHIATRIST: There were people who I remember being discharged and they'd be back in the emergency department the next day. It's pretty awful and demoralizing and I think it wears you down and it felt hopeless at times. There were times when I thought, 'What am I actually doing for this patient?' TEXT ON SCREEN: Mental health admissions to RPA have risen 54% from the same period the year before. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: Dr Goodison was part of the consultant liaison team, which was overloaded. Last year, the equivalent team at nearby Concord Hospital reached dangerously low staffing levels. DR SUZY GOODISON, CONSULTANT PSYCHIATRIST: The executive at that time determined that the clinicians that were at RPA would simply be able to also cover Concord. When I was away at Concord, there was nobody covering the service areas I was meant to be covering at RPA. It was just another red flag in the system, which I could see was breaking down. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: Dr Goodison's cases in her final days as a public psychiatrist still weigh on her. She recalls a man with schizophrenia who'd been missing for months after being released from jail. DR SUZY GOODISON, CONSULTANT PSYCHIATRIST: And he came in to RPA to the emergency department with a nail gun and he had shot nails actually into his knees because the voices were telling him to do that. So I immediately flagged that this man needed significant amount of care, he needed a bed in an acute mental health unit and that I was very concerned about him being in the general hospital. I then went off on a weekend, and when I called on the Monday, he'd absconded from the ward, the hospital ward, and no one knew where he was. He had no fixed address and I don't know what happened to him. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: So could he still be out there in the community in that current state? DR SUZY GOODISON, CONSULTANT PSYCHIATRIST: Yeah. He was walking around with a loaded nail gun in public. These are the risks that we carry when we work in this field and when I can't deliver that care to keep either individuals safe or the community safe. And the care needs to be … sorry… it is another Bondi Junction waiting to happen. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: The job had become untenable. Dr Goodison resigned with the other psychiatrists in January. DR SUZY GOODISON, CONSULTANT PSYCHIATRIST: It's been a very difficult time for me to try and reconcile the choices that I made to work in the public and then the choices I've made to leave. And I have thought, am I just making this worse? Am I making the system worse or am I abandoning the system? But that boat is going down. And I realised that I was burning out and there was a very strong sense of moral injury about how did I end up here and … sorry… I just couldn't keep walking on by and pretending that this was normal and that we were delivering care that was adequate. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: After dealing with an overwhelmed hospital system, patients are supposed to be assigned to a mental health team in the community. They're meant to be staffed with psychologists, social workers, nurses and ideally, psychiatrists. HELEN BOARDMAN, NSW NURSES & MIDWIVES' ASSOC.: My name's Helen and I'm a nurse practitioner in community and outpatient mental health. The volume of referrals that come through the mental health system has increased so much that sometimes it's essentially firefighting. We cannot provide the care that we want to provide to patients. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: NSW Health told us it's investing more than $2.9 billion into mental health services, including funding for community care, like $102 million for living support programs, which reduce pressure on EDs. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: But the Government's own data shows it's likely almost 60,000 people with severe mental illness aren't getting the community care they need. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: In the Sydney Local Health District, we've been told a community crisis team for the most severe patients is down by eight staff. And there's now only one part-time psychiatrist for around 130 patients. HELEN BOARDMAN, NSW NURSES & MIDWIVES' ASSOC.: I think we're past the point where just funding new services is going to fix the problem. We need to invest in frontline… existing frontline mental health services because where are you going to staff? Who's going to staff these community centres when we're already struggling to recruit and retain staff? MOTHER 1: In the first half of 2024, our son was admitted 3 times to the emergency department. Then in July, experiencing distress and not wanting to go back to the emergency department, he called the acute care community team and asked for help. MOTHER 2: My son is loyal, confused and vulnerable. Over the years when he's been psychotic, we have been to the emergency department so many times at Sydney hospitals. I've begged, cried and pleaded with these doctors to admit him so that he could be stabilised. MOTHER 3: My daughter is 14 and she's suffered from severe mental health issues for years. After taking her to emergency at one Sydney hospital and waiting for four hours, we were told there was no mental health support available and no beds. She was sent home for community care. It's been four weeks and still no psychiatrist appointment. MOTHER 1: He put me on the phone to the member of the acute care team who told me that they did not have anyone available to speak with him or come and see him. MOTHER 2: Due to a lack of mental health support, he has now spent a significant amount of time in custody over the years and with each custodial sentence his mental health has been exponentially worse upon release. MOTHER 1: Our son died late last year, aged 19. He was a beautiful, clever, thoughtful, compassionate, perceptive, loved, loving and profoundly sensitive child and adolescent who had struggled, with courage and resilience. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: NSW Health told us patients are not discharged "if it's not clinically appropriate," adding "we will never turn people away" CARLY RICHARDSON: I have depression and PTSD and I've accessed mental health support since I was 13. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: Carly Richardson is 20 and has had multiple mental health admissions. She's part of what's known as 'the missing middle': too sick for a GP to treat, but not sick enough to go to hospital. CARLY RICHARDSON: I tried to go to my treatment team, I'm, look, please, I need more help than this. And they once again said, we can't, there's nothing there. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: Without proper support these people can end up in crisis care. CARLY RICHARDSON: I think it was by the end of December, New Years, I essentially was hospitalised. I was sectioned for harming myself and placed in a psych ward. And I had a suicide attempt in the ward and I was saying, look, I'm not okay. Nothing had changed for me. And they said to me, they're like, we can't do anything because the beds everywhere were full. So they just had to send me home essentially. CARLY RICHARDSON: Once I got out, I didn't even make it home before I was sectioned again by six police officers and brought back to the emergency department after trying to harm myself again. And once again, I was sent home just 10 hours later. After I was discharged, I was kind of referred back to the same community mental health team, which for months I was declining under. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: One of the few options Carly has for her recovery is this 'Safe Haven' clinic — part of the government's Towards Zero Suicides initiatives. But it's not set up for her complex needs. CARLY RICHARDSON: Safe Haven's great. It's definitely not a place that fixes me, but it kind of ties me over a bit when I'm really not okay. I think we need more services that offer that step up, step down approach. CARLY RICHARDSON: I've lost faith in the system entirely. When you suffer from mental illness, it is so exhausting getting up every day, trying to live alongside a brain that doesn't want you to be there. It's like I'm so tired of just screaming out for help and nothing is there. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: For the first time, we can share the results of a national landmark survey by Beyond Blue. It's the most up-to-date data in Australia today. It shows rates of severe mental health symptoms are rising. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: Now, 4.5 million Australians are experiencing a serious mental health challenge, but more than half of them are not getting the help they need, when they need it. DR JAMES LAWLER, CHILD & ADOLESCENT PSYCHIATRIST: My name's James Lawler. I'm a child and adolescent psychiatrist. I work in a few sites across Western Sydney, and I'm a councillor for the Australian Medical Association in New South Wales. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: One of the most concerning problems we've found is: the mental health system struggles to care for vulnerable children. DR JAMES LAWLER, CHILD & ADOLESCENT PSYCHIATRIST: We know that 50% of mental health conditions present in children before they turn 14. So there's always the hope and the opportunity that by intervening early in a child's life, you're able to improve the life course and the mental health, but also the broader health of a human being for many years. But where that intervention happens too late, I suppose you miss the boat. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: Can you tell me about your workload? DR JAMES LAWLER, CHILD & ADOLESCENT PSYCHIATRIST: Yes it was triple the normal workload. It was the job of three psychiatrists that I was doing in one. So you're sort of left with the option of either just continuing to provide care that you don't think is at a good standard or trying to speak up and change the system. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: We've uncovered critical shortages of beds in child and adolescent units across NSW. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: In Campbelltown's adolescent unit, 8 new beds built over a year ago have never been opened. The hospital says it has enough beds for the community's needs. In Concord Hospital's Walker unit, just over half of its 11 beds are available. And last week, the adolescent unit in the regional city Orange was forced to close temporarily when its only psychiatrist went on leave. DR JAMES LAWLER, CHILD & ADOLESCENT PSYCHIATRIST: One of the services that I work in, there used to be eight child psychiatrists doing the work and now there's four and there's been a lot of efforts to try and hire more, but we can't seem to get any more at the moment. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: Dr Lawler resigned with his colleagues in January. He later decided to go back on a temporary contract. DR JAMES LAWLER, CHILD & ADOLESCENT PSYCHIATRIST: Again, it's really hard decision. I don't know if I made the right one. Stuck between wanting to improve the system, knowing that coming back and supporting a system that's falling apart sort of undermines the cause, but also not wanting the people who are left in the system to be struggling even more and for children and families to be left without anyone who can help. If the government comes up with a strategy that brings people back, brings psychiatrists back to the public system, I'm all for it. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: Doctor, NSW spends the lowest per capita on mental health of any state or territory. As the state's chief psychiatrist. Does that concern you? DR MURRAY WRIGHT, NSW CHIEF PSYCHIATRIST: Yes. I would like us to be at the top of that league table, not at the bottom. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: Doctor, considering that the Minister is the one who has that decision-making power, do you think that she should have spoken to us today about some of these issues considering the severity of them? DR MURRAY WRIGHT, NSW CHIEF PSYCHIATRIST: That's a matter for the Minister. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: NSW Health says its system is among the best in the world, telling us if anyone needs mental health treatment, they should reach out for help. AVANI DIAS, REPORTER: The Industrial Relations Commission is still considering a pay rise for psychiatrists. Sixty-two psychiatrists have gone through with their resignations. Others are waiting for that decision. DR PRAMUDIE GUNARATNE, NSW CHAIR, ROYAL AUST. & NZ COLLEGE OF PSYCHIATRISTS: We still have no tangible action from our government. So really, I have no idea. What will it take for this government to take mental health care seriously in this state? DR ANU KATARIA, CONSULTANT PSYCHIATRIST: Being a doctor at Cumberland Hospital has defined me, a large part of me, for the past two decades. And so a big part of me has been taken away and it's probably never going to come back. I wish things had gotten better and I had been able to stay where I was, but that's not to be. TEXT ON SCREEN: Dr Kataria has now accepted work in a private hospital TEAGHANNE SARINA, MENTAL HEALTH NURSE: I'd like there to be an incredible systemic change. There needs to be better resources. We need more staff, we need more nursing staff, we need better community resources. My patients deserve better. My colleagues deserve better. I deserve better. TEXT ON SCREEN: Teaghanne continues to work at Cumberland Hospital in the face of dire staff shortages. CARLY RICHARDSON: I kind of built a website. I just wanted there to be kind of like a platform for patients, their families, people working within the health sector to just be heard and to force the government to actually listen and respond. TEXT ON SCREEN: Carly is still looking for long term mental health support. She's putting her anger into advocacy. TEXT ON SCREEN: Lee's settling into her new life on the NSW South Coast. CHANTELLE BEUSTER, LEE'S NIECE: And we're excited because we're not going back in, are we? LEE: No, no, no! CHANTELLE BEUSTER, LEE'S NIECE: But anyway, it's day one of freedom. Yep. Alright we say, bye! LEE: Ciao. LUANA, LEE'S SISTER: See ya.
