Home and Away's Courtney Miller on her 'special' friendship with Lukas Radovich

Home and Away's Courtney Miller has shared the sweet surprise that her 'bestie' Lukas Radovich organised.

Video transcript

COURTNEY MILLER: I felt sad for him going. I didn't feel sad that I was leaving because it was him and I was losing touch of Bella's friend, and my best mate, like not getting to work with him every day 100%. Lucas on every take cried, like he was really upset. And I think the entire thing was throwing me off because it was just so many emotions of trying to remember the words-- trying to act well, I guess. And then the fact that my best mate was leaving this family, which I was then going to leave, like it was just a whole array of emotions, and it got to the last take.

And I did know right job. And he was crying and it was really good on his part. And the director said, "OK, I think that's a wrap. I think that's done." And then I just broke down. I went it's not good enough, not good enough. I said, I need to give it another go. I need to-- I just wasn't-- I don't want that to be the last take in his last scene. And so I started actually crying. It's like OK, yeah, cool, we'll do it again. We'll do it again. And that ended up being the last take of me crying because I was like I didn't give it justice, but also crying because of all these emotions. So it was a really fun thing to do, but very sad.

You constantly see people leave because it's just one of those shows that people just do their-- mostly do the three years, and then move on to different things, and want to do-- pursue different acting jobs. Because three years is a long time to do one character. So throughout my 3 and 1/2 years, I was constantly seeing people leave. So even when I started, I was imagining what it would be like to leave because you just see it all the time. And then finally, the day came. I was pretty-- I wasn't nervous, and I was pretty ready to go in the fact that I was quite tired.

I was ready to use the skills I had learnt to broaden myself out. I really wanted to go to drama school. And in saying that, I had the most beautiful farewell. You do speeches on your last day, on your last scene. You've come out of the studio, and everyone's there, and just like celebrating your time in the show, no matter how long it was. And I had about four really important people do speeches plus the producer. And it was everything I ever wished for.

He was meant to keep the seat. This is what he said, it was meant to keep the secret until the night of the opening. And he rang me at like 11:00 AM on the day. It was like a Thursday, and I had to quickly put up my paintings because I was at school all week, so I had to like come in on that day and set up. And a good mate of mine was playing the singing. So she came in. She did all her things. And I to put all my paintings up.

And he rang me, and he said, "Oh, hey, I know it's the day of your exhibition. How are you going? I was like, yeah, I'm good. I'm a little bit stressed. I wasn't. I was fine. Oh, I just have to hang everything. I hope I get it on time. And he said, well, when do you want me to help out. And I just went, I said a few swear words. I went, what? I went, what? And he said, yeah, yeah, I'll come help out. And it was just like it was amazing. It was really cool. Yeah.

And then he came and met all my drama friends. And we went to the pub that night, and then we got breakfast in the morning at his hotel. And then he left. But it was just-- it was really, really special. I don't think he knows how special that was. I'm trying to make money from my art. I can't live off it, but I'm definitely making money, which is great. So for me, acting is the passion, and art will help for the income. That's my hope. If I had to choose one, you know which one I'm going to choose is art 100%. But yeah, so I'm trying to-- I'm trying to make it a profit from art so that I can act freely.

I have a lot of things coming out smaller size wise instead of getting originals, which can be really expensive, and they're expensive to paint. So I've got a lot of A5 prints coming. Out a lot of A3 prints coming out. So it's all my Instagram. I have an Etsy store, and then an online store. So if you want some cheap part of my art, it's all from me. It's like some of it's made from my iPad, using the pen and Procreate. And some of that is actually acrylic on canvas, and then print it. So yeah, check it out.