She’s set to join Home and Away after finding fame as child star on hit shows like Mortified and The Saddle Club.
And she prepares to touch down in Summer Bay, Marny Kennedy, 27, has revealed the dark side of rising to popularity in front of the nation as a young child.
WATCH: Marny Kennedy stars in Mortified
“It is a tough industry but I have grown up on set not knowing anything else,” Marny told The Daily Telegraph this week.
“I enjoyed school and could have gone on to do a, b or c. Anyone in their right mind would probably try and do anything else but when you love it and it is such a part of who you are, you can’t do anything else.’”
Back in February, fan site Back to the Bay first revealed Marny would be joining the long-running soap.
According to the site, Marny will play a character called Rachel Young, who looks to be caught up in an upcoming explosive storyline that also involves fan favourites Jasmine (Sam Frost), Marilyn (Emily Symons), Ryder (Lukas Radovich) and Dean (Patrick O’Connor).
In the past, Marny has revealed her heartbreak about missing out on a gig on the iconic Channel Seven series.
“When I was about 21, a role in Home And Away came up,” Marny told TV WEEK in 2018.
“I’d never lent toward the Home And Away sort of role, but I hadn’t worked for so long, so I went for it. I didn’t end up getting it.”
The disappointment of missing out hit the young actress hard.
“I’d flown to Sydney and caught up with my cousin who lives here,” she recalled.
“He was so excited about the idea of me joining him, so when I didn’t get the role, I hit rock bottom.”
While Marny’s career trajectory is on the rise – in recent years she’s appeared in renowned local dramas such as Janet King and Underbelly: Chopper, there was a time when her dreams almost all came crashing down.
Struggling to make the transition from child star to more adult roles, Marny admitted to TV WEEK Close Up in 2018 she “self sabotaged” during auditions in Hollywood just five years prior to the interview.
When she returned home to Australia in 2014, she attempted to “escape” – and booked a trip to India without telling anyone.
“I was just running away. But then my mum intervened. She had spoken to my agent – which was unusual – and she sat me down and said, ‘We’re both really worried about you,’” she explained of the trying times.
“I remember bursting into tears, because it was so confronting to have the two people who believed in me the most sort of challenging me about something I didn’t even know.”
