Home And Away beauty 'fell in love on soap' and 'didn't have to fake' love scenes

 Home And Away actress Sophie Dillman has told of how she fell for boyfriend Patrick O'Connor while they were playing love interests Ziggy and Dean on the Australian soap.

Home And Away beauty Sophie Dillman has admitted she didn't need to fake being in love when she fell for her Summer Bay co-star Patrick O'Connor.

The actress's character Ziggy was in a romance with Dean in the Aussie show, and sparks started to fly as the soap stars filmed steamy scenes. Sophie questioned whether she had genuine feelings for Patrick or whether their on-screen love story had just spilled over into their lives.

But in a column for Yahoo Lifestyle Australia she shared that she had "butterflies" as they shot kissing scenes, and realised she was falling in love for real. Sophie said it was a slow burner as the pair started off as friends before bagging Summer Bay roles alongside each other.

"Slowly sparks started firing and the laughter got louder, and also more intimate," said the star, who was in Home And Away from 2017 to 2023. "Ziggy and Dean were falling and so were Sophie and Patrick.

"For some time I questioned whether I actually had feelings for him, or if was that just the result of our characters being crazy about each other? Then I found myself questioning everything. Did he touch me longer than normal? Did he just look at me funny? Was I staring for too long? Were we just doing a really good job of Diggy's romance?"

Sophie later realised that she had real feelings for Patrick, explaining: "I remember the exact moment that it stopped feeling like I was kissing a colleague, and even with the people watching and the sweat dripping down my back, there were a few butterflies in my stomach."

Ziggy and Dean's relationship didn't go the distance and they called time on their romance in moving scenes. But in real life, Sophie and Patrick are going strong.

Last year they moved from Down Under and they are now based in London, where they live together and are still very much an item. Sophie previously told Now To Love that the pair have been focusing on travel now that they are in the UK.

“I’m 30 [soon] and have to think about my eggs dying, apparently!” she said. "But I know that if I start a fertility journey at some point, there won’t be room for spontaneous travel. For so long we essentially played someone else far more than ourselves. Now we just want to see the world.”