It was a rough end to the year for Mackenzie Booth (Emily Weir) on Home And Away.
As the season closed, viewers saw Mac suffer a heart attack. Rushed to hospital, she was diagnosed with Scad (spontaneous coronary artery dissection).
Weir says once she heard about the storyline, she started doing research into Scad and who it affects.
The actor says that in the past she has struggled with an irregular heartbeat, but her heart health is now good.
“I had basically an arrhythmia and I had some ventricular ectopics, which is kind of a skipping of the heartbeat, which was really scary at the time.”
Weir says her health concerns were mostly caused by stress, but given that she has a family history of heart issues, she’s at higher risk and needs to keep on top of her health with regular check ups.
She says there are 155 cases of acute coronary heart disease and heart attacks in people aged 25 and over a day in Australia and that many young people aren’t aware they could be affected.
“In women especially, it doesn’t present in the typical way of a tight chest. It can be anything from like a sore shoulder, sore jaw, feeling really fatigued. And it’s really hard to differentiate because we live in a society where we’re always fatigued, we’re always pretty tired, we work a lot.”
Weir says a second scare for her character sees Mackenzie become protective about her health in an obsessive way. “Which is what happens to people when you have a health scare, it’s the mental and emotional effects of that, you kind of lose a lot of trust with your own body and so you become hyper-aware and, at times, almost paranoid,” she says.
But Mac’s friends rally around her, organising a fundraiser to help raise awareness of her condition.
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“It’s this amazing, beautiful gala where everyone is dressed up to the nines. It’s a real feast for the eyes, everyone looks beautiful, dressed up in red,” says Weir.
Despite her health woes, there may be a silver lining ahead for the Salt restauranteur in the form of a new romance. Boosting Mac’s mood is a burgeoning relationship with her caregiver, Dr Levi Fowler, played by Tristan Gorey (Mystery Road: Origin).
“He has become her port of call for her health and there’s an immediate, swift trust that happens because he has saved her life. Nothing hotter than that, right?”
After a terrible run of bad luck in love, Weir hopes that Mac can enjoy a lasting romance for once.
“I would really like Mackenzie to spend four seasons with someone, that’s for sure. That’s not up to me, but I think it would be amazing to see Mackenzie in something really stable and see what flourishes from that.”
The year 2023 was a big one for Weir. The actor, who has been very open about her struggles with alcohol and anxiety, came second on Dancing With The Stars Australia. She says the opportunity to perform on the competitive reality show came at a time when she was feeling quite lonely and insecure.
“It’s funny how things in life kind of pop up exactly when you need them. That experience came at a really, really big growth moment in my personal life and I really didn’t know how much I needed that journey. It was an incredibly healing experience.”
Weir danced from a young age and she says appearing on the show helped her fall back in love with dancing.
Another of her passions is travel. She has been around the world and is planning to visit India in 2024. But there’s another place she has yet to see that she’s hoping to visit soon.
“I’ve booked New Zealand thrice. Every time I booked it, every time, Covid hit. That’s the truth.
“Ethan [Browne, who plays Tane] is always telling me, bugging me to go and I am definitely going because no one ever goes to New Zealand and has a bad time.
“I ask people that travel a lot and two countries that I never hear anything but amazing feedback on are New Zealand and Japan.
“Everyone always has an amazing, beautiful experience, so I’m so eager to get there.”
