Neighbours star Takaya Honda says cast didn't know show had been revived
"Give us time to process."
Neighbours fans were left pleasantly stunned today (November 17) when it was announced that the beloved Australian soap would be revived by Amazon in 2023.
While Stefan Dennis, Alan Fletcher, Jackie Woodburne and Ryan Moloney all knew about the soap's comeback on Freevee and Prime Video – since they were in the announcement video – it seems that other cast members weren't aware.
Takaya Honda, whose character David Tanaka was part of the first same-sex marriage on Australian television with Aaron Brennan, shared the video on Twitter and added: "Just FYI the cast is finding this out right now. Give us time to process. We don’t know anything."
Related: Neighbours farewell tour confirms future after show revival announcement
It hasn't been confirmed beyond those main four cast members who will be returning and who won't be.
But Honda had already decided that 2022 was going to be his final year on the soap before Channel 5 cancelled it.
"After six years, I was happy to go and I felt that David had been on the journey he needed to. All of the stories that I'd wanted to tell with David had been told," he told earlier this year.
Similarly to news of the revival, the cast didn't know about the initial cancellation before it became public knowledge.
That was sad for us," Honda previously said of learning about the show's axe via the media.
"I'm somewhat disappointed that it did get leaked in that way. I think the people who leak that kind of stuff don't really understand that they're talking about 200 people's jobs – and not having the respect for those people to allow them to be the first to know about it.
"It wasn't a shock, but it was a surprise and it was unfortunate how it came about."
Neighbours will return in the second half of 2023.
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