Aussie actress Claudia Karvan breaks down over ‘tragic' revelations

News.com.au

11-05-2025

Claudia Karvan didn't have high hopes when she agreed to appear on SBS' genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are?
She might be one of Australia's best-loved actors, but Karvan confessed she was worried it might present an acting challenge beyond even her: Pretending to be fascinated by the show's findings about her family history.
Karvan says at the top of her episode, which airs this Tuesday on SBS, that she doesn't expect to feel much of a connection to her deceased ancestors during this fact-finding mission. She's soon proven wrong, though, and at one point even breaks down on camera as a tragic family secret is uncovered.
'My biggest fear was I thought I'd be bored and that I would have to act like I was interested in all these foreign names and pieces of archival footage and documents,' Karvan told news.com.au ahead of her episode airing.
'But that was completely reversed: I was engaged, and I loved being out of control. I loved been taken on this mystery trip.'
Karvan's dive into her family's past takes her to the UK and Cyprus, where she's visibly moved by the suffering her ancestors endured, from a great-grandmother who grew up 'loveless' in an orphanage with a death rate so high it had its own morgue to a great-grandfather who survived World War I despite having one of the most dangerous occupations imaginable: A balloon operator or 'balloonatic', responsible for surveying the land from on high (while being a sitting duck for any enemy snipers).
But Karvan doesn't agree when I suggest her ancestors' lives – indeed much of human history – seems rather grim.
'My takeaway wasn't that their lives were grim – it was how resilient they all were. That's what blew me away. I learned a lot about resilience and how constructive and industrious my ancestors were. I couldn't have prepared myself for that,' she said.
Nor could she have prepared herself for one heartbreaking revelation during the episode.
A historian hands Karvan the death certificate for one of her war hero ancestors, and she immediately breaks down as she learns that he survived the war only to later die by suicide.
Karvan said filming that particular scene was 'pretty full-on.'
Her own late father would've been eight or nine when that tragic suicide rocked the family, and yet it was information that was never passed down to her.
But there were happier discoveries too, as Karvan identified a theme with many of the women in her families that she could trace to her mother and herself: Strong, independent women who followed their passions, regardless of whether that was what society expected of them at the time.
'I think I imagined that a lot more of our lives were preordained by 'nurture,' but now I'm more in the camp where I feel what's reflected in my life is more 'nature'' Karvan says.
'It turns out I've inherited a lot, which I was surprised by.'