Home and Away's Jacqui Purvis spills on a return to the show: 'Best job I've ever had'

Home and Away star Jacqui Purvis left the show in August 2024, when her character Felicity Newman suffered a brain aneurysm and died. She still seemed to have unfinished business with her ex-husband, Tane Parata (Ethan Browne), and has strong ties to Summer Bay in the form of her brother, Cash Newman (Nicholas Cartwright), so would she ever go back to the soap?

While her character Felicity is dead, Home and Away has been known to bring back previously deceased characters. Common soap storylines can involve a faked death or bringing an actor back as a secret twin, which could work for Felicity.

Jacqui isn’t opposed to returning to Summer Bay, saying she loved playing the spunky Felicity. “I love that job, and I love that character. So who knows, who knows what could happen?” she teases. “Never say never, that’s a good one, a good motto.”

The actor tells Chattr she can’t “speak more highly” about working on Home and Away, and genuinely seems to miss working on set. “It truly was the best job I’ve ever had,” she admits. “I will always have the friendships that I made there. I’ll never forget the work we did. It truly was incredible, and I loved every second of it.”

Jacqui didn’t go to acting school, so she treated her time on set like a crash course. “That [was] pretty much my uni, you know, I didn’t go to acting school,” she says. “I’m just so grateful to it, because I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for that.”

She keeps in touch with lots of her Summer Bay family, including Stephanie Panozzo (Eden Fowler), Juliet Godwin (Bree Cameron) and Ethan (Tane). “We really were, or are still, a family. You make these bonds, and it’s so hard to walk away from that. So yeah, I’m always messaging, being like, ‘What’s going on?'” Jacqui adds.

What has Jacqui Purvis been working on since leaving Home and Away?

Jacqui has kept herself busy since departing Summer Bay, and is set to star in her first professional play produced by her own production company, Nic Nac Productions. In 2026, she will film Fear Is The Rider, also starring Star Wars: Rogue One’s Ben Mendelsohn, The Bikerider’s Toby Wallace and Babyteeth’s Eliza Scanlen.

She plans to head over to LA for parts of next year, and has appreciated advice from other actors trying to carve out a successful career in the industry. “Honestly, the biggest [piece of advice] is [to] follow your gut. There’s so many things that happen in this industry, so many voices, so many people telling you what to do [and] what not to do,” Jacqui says.

“I think the strongest thing is to just keep coming back to your gut and what you think is the right thing to do and trust that.”