Neighbours star Takaya Honda announces his next acting role

The actor has joined the cast for The Gift That Gives.

Neighbours star Takaya Honda has announced his next acting role.

The actor, who played David Tanaka on the Australian soap, has joined the cast for The Gift That Gives, a romcom from Australian-Asian filmmaker Joy Hopwood.

Honda will star as Callum Mori, an author whose book lands him a slot on a television programme. Once there, he catches the eye of presenter Kate (Lily Brown-Griffiths), but his sights are set firmly on her best friend, bookshop owner Linda (HaiHa Le).

The cast for the film also includes Lex Marinos and Susan Ling as Callum’s parents, as well as Maria Tran, Andy Trieu and Genevieve Craig.

Speaking about the project, Honda said (via IF Magazine): "I am super excited to get started on The Gift That Gives. I was attracted to it because it is an interesting blend of a romcom and a whodunit with rich and diverse characters. The script has some interesting twists and turns that don’t get caught in rom-com clichés."

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He previously spoke about Neighbours and its final episode on Channel 5, telling that he had fulfilled his ambitions with David’s storyline. "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 said.

Since then, Amazon Freevee surprisingly gave the soap a lifeline by reviving it, with many of the cast members shocked – and excited – by the news. Upon learning of the announcement, Honda tweeted: "Just FYI the cast is finding this out right now. Give us time to process. We don’t know anything."

Neighbours returns in the second half of 2023 with new episodes streaming free on Amazon Freevee in the UK and US. Network 10 will retain first-run rights in Australia for the new series.