All Saints: profiles


Libby Tanner…

Libby loves her All Saints character. 'She has so much energy,' she says.

"Bron is a good nurse and she has the instincts to become a good ambulance officer."

Libby has never wanted to be a nurse and has been fortunate to never require hospital treatment. But, for her, the link between nursing and playing a nurse is about empathising with people.

"Nurses have to care for people, get into their world and understand what the patients are going through and what their fears are to be able to help them through it," she says.

Libby says Bron's high energy levels make her engaging, but the excesses of her private life do take a toll. She is enjoying working with these elements of Bron's nature as the storylines develop.

Libby grew up in Melbourne, attending nine different schools because of her mother's interest in doing up old houses and then selling up and moving on.

As a child, she loved dancing and began classical and jazz ballet when she was seven. She did not really think about acting until she was 16.

"I was in a combined Year 11 and 12 class and the Drama teacher made me stand up to audition for the role of Eliza Doolittle," she says.

"I was petrified but she gave me the role and that started me thinking seriously about acting," she says. She then moved on to do TOP Drama at Preston College.

In 1991, she enrolled in the Bachelor of Performing Arts Course at Ballarat University.

Since graduation she has worked with the Barnstormin' Theatre Company and her television credits include Neighbours, Bony, The Man from Snowy River, Frontline, Blue Heelers and, most recently, Pacific Drive.

And it is thanks to her Pacific Drive character Zoe that Libby literally fell into a sideline singing career.

"I was doing an appearance last year judging a talent quest with some drag queens and we were just having so much fun and laughing... I fell off the stage. There was a guy from a record company in the audience and he said he wanted me to record a song."

Libby recorded the single 'Different' (a cover of a Mama Cass song) with female impersonator Hugh Monro and singer Mark Fuller under the group name of The Family. But she has not had time for any other singing gigs since then.

The past year has been pretty hectic for Libby, juggling her All Saints workload with discovering Sydney.

…as Bronwyn Craig

Bronwyn is a girl with attitude who embraces life head on. Her nature is mercurial, funny and good-humoured but occasionally quick-tempered and volcanic.

Whenever Bronwyn is on the scene there is an infusion of high energy. But we also fear for her and the past year has taken a toll on her.

She formed a close bond with one of her patients, Bob Parkin, and helped him come to terms with his HIV status. Bob was a mate who came to mean more to her than her own father, who she regarded as ruthlessly ambitious and pompous.

Still, she acknowledged her father Professor Craig as a fine surgeon and when Bob needed an operation Bron pleaded with him to take the case. Professor Craig put a high price on this, demanding she resign from All Saints. And, to give Bob a chance, Bron agreed.

Bob died on the table but Bron honoured her promise. She moved out of the Nurses' Quarters and in with Connor and Jared. She also decided to become an ambulance officer. Bron thought this was the perfect way to use her nursing qualifications and was keen for the adrenalin rush dealing with crisis situations.

But Bron was not prepared for the bureaucracy of the service–despite her years of nursing, she is bottom rung of the ambulance ladder. She has a lot of potential and has handled some situations skilfully and been on the verge of falling apart at other times.

Bron has always been a bit of a self-acknowledged flirt, making no apologies about the romantic life she leads. She used to fall in love with someone new every other week but, although neither of them admitted it, she fell quite hard for Dr Luke Forlano. They broke up because he felt she had not trusted him enough to tell him that Professor Craig was her father. But there is still a spark between them.