Home and Away star Sophie Dillman has been exposing some of the methods that go into making the Aussie soap.

Dillman, 30, took on the role of Ziggy on the hit soap, which airs in the UK on Channel 5. Having been on the sandy beaches of Summer Bay for six years, Sophie shared some of the production secrets that go into filming the show.

Several of the show’s secrets involve faking intimacy, and elements of character’s personalities and looks, in a shocking twist for fans. She also explained how a dusting of “TV magic” is used to transform Summer Bay into the sleepy village that it looks like on our screens.

Joking to Yahoo Lifestyle, she quipped back in 2023: “It looks like a walk from the caravan park onto the beach is a quick five minutes and the Farm Houses are just around the corner.” However, iconic locations for the show – including Farm House and the Surf Club – are actually some way away and take hours to reach from the set.

As well as this, Sophie destroyed the illusion of raunchy scenes on the show by admitting many of the snogs on set are faked. “I hate to tell you but a lot of kisses that you see on-screen aren’t entirely real,” she revealed.

In the bombshell admission, she explained: “Most actors choose to use a ‘stage kiss’ to keep a degree of separation with their fellow co-stars. Essentially, the French part of the French kiss is taken out, if you catch my drift.”

However, Sophie joked that “Dean and Ziggy didn’t have to do much faking on set”, before adding a winking emoji. This is due to the fact that she had started dating her on-screen partner Patrick O’Connor, who plays Ziggy’s lover Dean on the show.

Sophie also gave props to the crew behind the scenes of the show for making it all happen. She also gave special thanks to the costume and make-up department, who painstakingly have to add and remove fake tattoos from actors on a regular basis.

Sophie, together with beau Patrick, left Summer Bay behind in March of 2023, after she began to experience chronic pain from her endometriosis. In a brave post that she shared to her Instagram at the time, she admitted she would regularly be left on the floor due to the pain it would cause her.

Due to the erratic nature of the disease, which sees tissue that usually lines the inside of the uterus instead grow outside of it, Sophie’s appearance has shifted dramatically through the years. This can come in the form of bloating or causing immense discomfort.

As well this, the pair decided to call time on their stint in Summer Bay as they felt they had done everything they could with the character. They both admitted that the decision was “incredibly hard”, but believed it was the right time to go.