To Look Good You Have to Eat Well

Source: TV Week

Date: Oct 27th- Nov 2nd, 2001.

After working long hours on the sets of All Saints and Always Greener, the last thing this group of actors feels like doing is going home to cook a healthy dinner.

But, while a takeaway pizza with the lot might be appealing, these actors say that in order to look good for the show they have to resist he temptation.

“Its really hard to eat healthily when you work such long hours,” says Ling Hsueh Tang, who plays All Saints intern Kylie Preece. “I find that I'd much rather grab some takeaway on the way home.”

“I’ll get home late and still cook,” adds Judith McGrath, All Saints’ Von. “But only because I find it therapeutic. It helps me to unwind.”

When TV WEEK got some of the cast of these two popular Seven Network shows together for a healthy meal of baked coral trout, we found that maintaining a healthy diet while working on a top Aussie drama isn't always as easy as it seems.

“The bane of our existence is that there’s always bread on the set,” Says Ben Tari (All Saints nurse Jared Levine).

“And for no reason at all, you find that you’ve shoved a couple of pieces in your mouth while standing there,” Judith adds.

For the guys at Always Greener the mounds of bread are replaced by an endless supply of fresh fruit, something  for which Scoot Major (who plays Tom Major) says he’s eternally grateful.

“We’ve got a great caterer and there’ always heaps of fruit around. There are biscuits, too, but a couple of those don't go anywhere whereas fruit keeps you going all day,” he says. “I think they want us to look good on screen so that’s why they’ve gone with the fruit.”

For Michala Banas- rebellious Marissa Taylor on Always Greener- looking good is especially important.

“My character often wears pretty skimpy clothes, so its definitely part of my job to look good. And in order to do that I make sure that I'm eating really healthy stuff,” she says.

All of the actors on this drama agree that maintaining a healthy diet- no matter how hard it may seem- is important for their jobs.

“If you eat well and stay healthy then everything works like clockwork” says Daniel Bowden, Always Greener's Jason Taylor. “I find that if I've eaten well I can concentrate a lot better.”

While you may think that the female actors are under more pressure to keep to a healthy diet and stay slim than their male counterparts, share a though for 26- year-old Scott.