There are a few things in life that everyone dreads.

During the war it was receiving a telegram. Seeing a policeman on your doorstep sends a shiver down your spine and for Leah it was a life changing phone call.

Everything had been going so well. She was happy that she had found Roman to take over the dinner and she was getting ready to start a new adventure with her gorgeous husband, Dan Baker and her son V.J. in America.

Of all the couples in Summer Bay, these two were as good as it gets. Always loving, and not afraid to have a bit of fun. Remember when Leah dressed up in a sexy waitress outfit to surprise Dan, not expecting him to come back with a group of giggling students. Although mortally embarrassed, she couldn’t help but smile. Then there was the time when Dan surprised her with a beautifully romantic dinner in the garden.

In fact there were so many great moments between these two, that when we heard that scream of anguish from Leah as she was told of Dan’s death, we physically felt her pain and reached out for the box of tissues.

Ada Nicodemou who plays Leah, found this storyline particularly draining. “It was very hard to play those scenes” she admitted. “ I can’t say I like doing emotional scenes, some actors can turn it on and turn it off, but I have to be in that moment and concentrate a lot and you just want do it justice. It takes a lot out of me, I have to get to a certain place and stay there the whole day.” Ada explained.

Emotional scenes are very gruelling, especially when you have to do more than one take. “There is a point where I have this really primal scream, I had to prepare my voice because you are doing that time and time again for 40 minutes. I know it sounds silly but I had to get in the zone, you really try and imagine what the character is going through and put yourself in that situation. I’m not really good at doing lots of takes, if you haven’t got me on the second take I find it hard to continue to make it feel natural” she laughed.

When they were filming these scenes, Ada’s husband Chris was away, so she was able to draw on the emptiness of being without a loved one. “The good thing about acting is that you get to deal with a lot of stuff in your life and you do look at things differently” she reflected. Leah’s loss made Ada think “wow I do cherish my mum, my brother, and my husband, which is not something that everyone gets a chance to think about every day.” she said passionately.

Leah goes into shock and feels guilty for Dan’s death. She says to Sally ‘Everything happens for a reason, but Dan didn’t deserve this’, she wants to know if God is punishing her because she knew Vinny (her first husband) was still alive. ‘I knew it was a sin’ she agonises.

Sally tries to convince her that it wasn’t her fault at all, that something bigger was at play here. Ada empathises “she is quite religious as well, in her own way she is quite spiritual and having guilt there is hard and I think a normal reaction. She is married to Vinnie in the eyes of God and so marrying another man is doing the wrong thing. I can’t really relate to that example but I can understand her guilt.”

Rachel tries to support Leah and says 'I could tell you the five stages of grieving that you will go through. But you know all that from personal experience. Just like you know everybody does it differently and in their own time, in their own way. Another thing we both know is that the grieving process cannot start until you acknowledge there is a need for it. This is not about forgetting Dan or leaving him behind because that is never going to happen. From this point on in your life he is always going to be apart of you. Just like you were always a part of him.

The very good part in our nature so often comes from the people that we love deeply and who love us. But death draws a line, it separates our memories from our actual living life. And that’s the one that you need to cross, because, there is a child who is also a part of you, who is going to feel this loss deeply. Death cannot be about clinging on for you, or for Dan. But it is another part of life.'

For Ada personally there was also some genuine sadness as her good friend Tim Campbell (Dan) has left the show.

“We are extremely close and he’s such an amazing guy. It was such a pleasure to work with Tim every single day, and we are both very similar in how we approach our work, we don’t take ourselves too seriously and just have a great laugh on set and he’s just a great friend. But at the same time I am so excited about what he’s doing and it’s about time that the world takes note of how talented he is, so I was very happy for him, but very sad that I wasn’t going to see him every day.” She said.

Tim was overwhelmed by the turn out by cast and crew on his final day. “It’s been a fantastic 3.5 years of my life, even beyond the professional aspects” he said. “The social atmosphere I’ve had over that time has been incredible, getting to work with fantastic people is a real bonus.” Tim has thrown himself into new projects. He went to Perth to appear in the musical ‘Rent’, followed by ‘Shout’ in Melbourne and in Sydney from early March.

So what’s next for Leah, any big storylines? “I hope so they keep telling me there are” Ada laughs. “She needs to look after her son and deal with Dan’s death, she has already mourned one husband and Dan wouldn’t want her sitting around in black for 40 days and all that stuff that the Greeks do so who knows.”

“I am ready to work, I feel Leah has been on hold for a while, which has been good as I have had a busy couple of years in my own personal life, but I’m ready to tackle this year.” She said enthusiastically.

After seeing the quality of Ada’s acting this week, we have a lot to look forward to from this much loved actress.

Interview by Tania Seager