Neighbours’ legend Annie Jones has revealed the friction between Jane Harris and everyone’s favourite mega brat Zara Selwyn (Freya Van Dyke) will end in a scary situation in upcoming episodes.
Ever since Amy Greenwood’s (Jacinta Stapleton) daughter arrived in Erinsborough she’s been running wild, and that includes causing havoc at school only days after enrolling!
Jane was horrified when Zara set off the fire alarm with burning paper right in front of her, after trying to impress ‘cool’ girls Sadie Rodwell (Emerald Chan) and Aubrey Laing (Etoile Little).
“At heart, Jane always tries to be the best for the students to bring out their best and to really make sure that they learn really well,” Annie explained to whattowatch.com.
“Jane feels that some kind of punishment for Zara is necessary because she’s completely off the rails.
“She expects that Amy will push Zara in some way as well – it’s not all up to the school – it’s a parenting thing as well that needs to happen.”
Amy has been a soft touch since her daughter decided to quit living with her two dads and move in with her mum. She’s not used to bringing up a teen and doesn’t know what to do with her.
But Jane’s attempt to bring Zara into line without back up from Amy only pushed her buttons even further, leading Zara to cruelly spread some gossip.
“Amy lets her get away with murder! All that bad behaviour just keeps on continuing there’s incident after incident,” Annie agreed.
“Jane had a little unfortunate turn of events a while ago that she had hoped had been resolved and she’d been forgiven for.
”Somehow Zara gets a hold of this information and it spreads like wildfire and suddenly Jane is the talk of the school and it’s just so humiliating and so embarrassing for poor Jane.”
Things then take a potentially frightening turn when a bin is set on fire at the school. Thankfully, Curtis Perkins (Nathan Borg) rushes to the rescue to put out the blaze.
In the aftermath of the incident, Zara cops the blame, although she might not be the culprit this time….
“Jane assumes that it’s Zara. Who else would do such a thing? Potentially there may be people in danger. As far as Jane’s concerned any fire is a dangerous one,” Annie revealed.
Annie teased that the fire at the school is just the start of something more alarming but we may see some kind of redemption for Zara yet…
“It all just comes to a great big crescendo of drama! As far as things go with Zara, it’s after that crescendo that things start to fall into place and answers are made about who’s responsible for what and things do get sorted out.”
Jane’s work-life may be full of shocks, but her home life seems to be going pretty smoothly, even though we haven’t seen her with partner Clive Gibbons (Geoff Paine) on screen for ages!
“There will be more of their relationship!” Annie promised.
“Clive is often very busy being the CEO of the hospital so we don’t always get to see him.
“But he and Jane’s relationship is going very, very well, strength to strength, and we will see them spending quite a lot more time together soon.”
While Clive’s been busy with hospital business, we’ve seen Jane bonding with her fellow ladies of Ramsay Street, Terese Willis (Rebekah Elmaloglou), and Susan Kennedy (Jackie Woodburne). They’ve even enjoyed a rather nice brunch around Susan’s dining room table.
“I really like that friendship of all the women together. I think we all bounce off each other really well,” shared Annie.
“It’s a funny thing that scene when we’re sitting around the table. For some reason those chairs are really low so we always have to sit on a cushion!
“That’s a little ‘in’ secret for you! We all look like we’re sitting at the kids’ table at a Christmas lunch!”
Fans can’t help but have noticed that since the New Year, we’ve got to see more and more of the ‘city’ away from Ramsay Street and the Lassiters complex.
Sadly, since talking to Annie it’s been revealed that Neighbours is scheduled to finish in the summer after a deal with Channel 5 to invest in the long-running soap fell through.
But Annie did tease that we’ll be seeing more of Melbourne in the coming months and there might be a new family twist for Jane.
“Back in the ‘80s we were never allowed to disclose where Erinsborough was, it was always just a generic place somewhere in Australia. We never showed trams, or anything that said it was ‘Melbourne’,” explained Annie.
“Now we’re very proudly a Melbourne show, as you can see in the opening titles.
“There will be more and more scenes coming along where we’ll be all over Melbourne, not just Ramsay Street and not just in the back lot of the studio.
“Fans should be looking forward to seeing a lot more of the sights - including the winery. It’s a gorgeous building. It’s made from huge sandstone blocks and it’s really old.”
With Jane firmly settled in Ramsay Street with daughter Nicolette Stone (Charlotte Chimes) and baby granddaughter Isla, could we be seeing any more of Jane’s family arriving in Erinsborough?
“You never know! There may be some more family members arriving…” she teased.
“You’ll have to stay tuned! That’s a possibility, let’s say.”
There’s a lot of love from online fans for both Annie and her character, which she’s very happy about.
“It blows my mind, it really does!. I’m very flattered and very humbled and I think it’s really lovely.
“Being on Neighbours is my favourite thing to do - I really love it.”
Neighbours continues weekdays at 1:45pm and 6:00pm on Channel 5
