NEIGHBOURS legend Alan Fletcher has opened up on his secret soap role before taking on the iconic character of Karl Kennedy.
The star has played the show’s longest continually-running character on the Australian soap since 1994 and will be saying goodbye to the role for good later this year when Neighbours goes off air for the final time.
Neighbours icon Alan Fletcher has opened up on his forgotten soap role[/caption]
The star spoke out about appearing in Neighbours in the 80s on Saturday Night with Hayley Palmer[/caption]
He is best known as Dr Karl in the show[/caption]
But what you may not realise is that actor Alan began appearing in Neighbours way before he achieved recognition for playing Karl.
Despite making his debut as dishy doctor Karl in 1994, his first trip to Erinsborough was actually back in 1987 in the role of Greg Cooper.
The star discussed his forgotten role with Hayley Palmer on her showbiz talk show, Saturday Night with Hayley Palmer.
In The Sun’s exclusive first-look clip of the interview, he opened up on the beginnings of his soap career, revealing to the star: “I actually did three weeks playing a character called Greg Cooper.
“He was a mechanic who was brought on to be the supervising mechanic for Kylie Minogue‘s character, Charlene.
“So yeah, I had my first little three-week stint then.”
In a surprise revelation, Alan went on to admit that soap bosses had actually begged him to stay playing Greg for another YEAR but he turned the opportunity down.
Alan told Hayley: “They asked me to stay for a year and offered me a year contract the following year and I turned them down to do theatre.
“You know, the fate’s met.
“As a result of turning that down, I then went on to do another really high-quality drama for three years called Embassy.
“And then of course, along comes Dr Karl.”
In a sad blow to fans, it was revealed earlier this year that Neighbours had been axed by Amazon once more, having previously been shelved in 2022 by its then home, Eleven.
Amazon then rebooted the show just months later but it has already pulled the plug on continuing on with the soap any further.
Speaking about the decision to end the show, Alan hinted that the revival was only ever “short-term”.
He said: “It finishes at the end of this year.
“Amazon – I think it was always probably a short-term strategy in mind, I don’t know.
“I’m not sure what the plans were but ultimately, you know, it would be unusual for them to keep it on forever.
“What happened with Amazon coming on and their injection of expertise of being an American production company and combined with the talent of our crew, they built Neighbours from the ground up.
“It was a spectacularly good product and I’m very proud of it to finish and see it as a template for the future.”
You can watch Alan’s full interview on Saturday Night with Hayley Palmer on September 6th on Freeview channel 271.
Alan further discussed how Amazon likely only viewed the revival as ‘short-term’[/caption]