Neighbours Spoilers – Chloe and Elly actors discuss ‘Chelly’ wedding

In just two weeks, Chloe and Elly will tie the knot in Neighbours‘ first wedding of the ‘Next Chapter’. April Rose Pengilly and Jodi Gordon tell Back to the Bay what to expect.

July 2022 saw what was expected to be Neighbours‘ final wedding, as Toadie Rebecchi (Ryan Moloney) and Melanie Pearson (Lucinda Cowden) got married in the last ever episode, bringing our time in Erinsborough to an end after 37 years.

Just over a year later, Neighbours was back on our screens thanks to Amazon Freevee, beginning with the wedding of Toadie and Terese (Rebekah Elmaloglou). Now, three months later, we’re hurtling straight towards the second wedding of the new chapter.

On Thursday 28th November, we will see Chloe Brennan (April Rose Pengilly) and Elly Conway (Jodi Gordon) walk down the aisle together, as the will-they-won’t-they couple finally cement their future together, five years after their first kiss.

On the day before their engagement was officially announced, we sat down with actors April Rose Pengilly and Jodi Gordon to find out how their characters are feeling, how Chloe’s Huntington’s affected their decision, and what’s next for “Chelly”.

This is Chloe’s second time down the aisle, and her third engagement. How does Chloe feel this time around?

APRIL – “I think she feels like this is it. She’s faced her fears, having some random early Huntington’s symptoms has kind of spooked her, and it really is true love.

“Chloe had come to Elly and said ‘I’ve got these symptoms and I know it’s going to be a lot, and I want you to not be burdened by this’, basically, and tries to give her an out.

“And Elly, for whom it is true love as well, says ‘No, I want to be with you through this, I’m here to fight this with you,’ and they kind of come together from that place, which I think is really pure and beautiful.

“So I think Chloe is walking down the aisle very happily.

“Not that she wasn’t happy with her other wedding…,” April adds with a laugh. “No shade [on Pierce].”

Since Chloe was first diagnosed with Huntington’s, we’ve seen her mother Faye’s death from the disease, and now the appearance of Chloe’s own symptoms.

What kind of research have you done into Huntington’s?

APRIL – ‘I’ve done research all throughout the storyline, because it’s really important to us to represent these things accurately and y’know, it’s not a fun thing to film – it’s really sad and you get really protective of your character and you don’t want them to have to go through something like this. It’s a really heartbreaking illness.

“When I did the Neighbours tour in March and April and we got to meet hundreds and hundreds of fans, we had quite a few who came to me and said they had a family member who had Huntington’s, or it’d touched their lives in some way, and they were so grateful that it had been represented on the show.

“To be honest, I hadn’t heard of it before this storyline, and a lot of people haven’t, so they liked that they were able to say to people, ‘Oh yeah, my father has the thing that Chloe has on Neighbours’; there was kind of a reference point for them.

“So yeah, as difficult as it can be shooting those storylines, and there is a lot of responsibility, to know that we’re helping in some small way makes it all worth it.’

Chloe gives Elly the option of an out when she first admits that she’s suffering from Huntington’s symptoms – how is Elly feeling at that point?

JODI – “Chloe’s such a selfless character, she’s always so concerned about putting anyone else out or being a burden, and I feel like it just made Elly fall more in love with her, she was trying to give her this space to think about it.

“And really there was nothing to think about, if anything it just solidified their partnership and their love, and the future for them.”

So no doubts at all? It’s a case of, ‘You’re the one for me, absolutely’?

JODI – “Absolutely. I think that that’s been there for a while from Elly, and I like that they’ve told that story of them coming together, of trying to figure out what it means when you love someone, and ‘Do we have to put a label on it? Who am I?’

“There’s all these other storylines that happened within the storyline of Chloe and Elly coming together, and it was really beautiful to see that.

“I think the enormity of what Chloe was going through really hit Elly in that moment when she told her. It’s that terrifying fear of losing that person you love the most in the world, so I think that that was a really hard thing for Elly to digest, but there was never a doubt about who she wanted to be with, or what they couldn’t conquer together.”

Just days before Chloe and Elly’s engagement aired, April herself got engaged to Adam Paul, her partner of two years.

When you filmed this 4-5 months ago, did you imagine that Chloe and April would be getting together the same week?

APRIL – “Definitely not. It’s very funny, because when we filmed, we actually weren’t given an air date yet, they weren’t sure when the show was going to start airing or anything, so I didn’t know when any of this was going to play out, nor did my partner, so yeah it’s very weird but quite lovely and serendipitous.”

JODI – “‘I saw one person say, ‘Oh Jodi, I thought that that was you’!”

APRIL – “So many people did, because the picture was out of focus and my partner’s got long hair, so I had so many people saying, ‘Oh I thought this was a storyline announcement and that was Jodi.”

JODI – “I’m clearly not that muscly!”

APRIL – “Yeah, Jodi’s been working out hard!”

How do you think the fans will react to the news of a ‘Chelly’ engagement?

APRIL – “I hope they’re going to be happy. I’ve seen a couple of little leaks already, so [I’ve been] trying to keep it under wraps, because I want them all to be really surprised, but we always just feel a lot of pressure and want to do the Chloe and Elly storylines justice, so yeah, I hope we have.”

The final scene sees Chloe and Elly leave for their honeymoon, with no word on whether they’ll be heading back to Erinsborough again afterwards.

Will we be seeing you both again?

JODI – “Fingers crossed! It was very very emotional, and was actually the last scene that we shot as well, so we don’t know what the future holds for the couple, or when or if we’ll be back, but I certainly hope so.”

APRIL – “Yes, we’re very much open to it. We don’t know anything just yet, but Chloe and Elly were off on a big fat long honeymoon courtesy of Paul Robinson, so I think they’re going to be milking that for a while to be honest.”

What was it like getting to continue to explore Chloe’s Huntington’s when Neighbours was resurrected?

APRIL – “With the nature of the disease, Chloe’s symptoms shouldn’t really kick in until she’s maybe in her 50s, so this is just kind of a little bit of an early teaser of what’s to come.

“So yeah, I didn’t think I would ever have to explore it this deeply, for a while at least – maybe if I came back to Neighbours later in life – and yeah, I always feel a lot of pressure to do the storyline justice and to make those people who have been touched by the disease feel seen.

‘There is a lot of pressure with things like that and we really want to do it right. And it’s really sad, you get really protective of your characters and don’t want them to go through something like this.”

What was it like bringing Aster to life now that she’s been aged up a bit, with Amelia Gavin taking on the role?

JODI – “I actually thought that was one of the most special parts of the wedding, seeing the story between Chloe and Elly, and then Aster as well and the family dynamic between the three girls. I absolutely loved that, I just thought it was really special.

“And to work with her as well, that was the first TV show that she’d been an actor on, so it was very cute.”

APRIL – “And I have to shout out Jodi as well, because Jodi’s a mum, she’s amazing with kids.

“I’m personally not around a lot of kids and I don’t really know what to do with them, I’m like ‘hello sir, nice to meet you, do you have a wife?’ but Jodi came in and made sure we had time set aside to spend time with her and run the scenes if she wanted to, and Jodi brought her some gifts and really went above and beyond to make her feel comfortable. It was really, really lovely.”

JODI – “We created that dynamic before we started filming, and I thought it was really cute. You were great with her, April.”

APRIL – “Maybe because I’m on the same maturity level!”

And what about Mark, Chloe’s brother, to whom Elly was engaged and briefly married, until he discovered that Chloe and Elly had slept together?

JODI – “I feel like Mark’s really happy for the girls, right?”

APRIL – “I think he’s got his own thing going on, I think he’s alright with it now.”

Chloe and Elly’s wedding airs on Thursday 28th December. 

New episodes of Neighbours air Monday–Thursday on Network 10 and 10 Peach in Australia, and on Amazon Freevee in the UK.

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