“It actually wasn’t my choice” – Ryan Moloney on his Neighbours exit

As Toadie’s final scenes on Neighbours grow ever closer, Ryan Moloney reveals why he left and what it was like to film the dramatic ‘Death in the Outback’ week.

We caught up with Ryan Moloney for a chat last week, as he revealed more about what’s in store in his final few weeks on the show.

Ryan Moloney’s Toadie has been a familiar face on Ramsay Street since 1995. Ryan first made a guest appearance on Neighbours as ‘Cyborg’ in 1994, but returned for a full-time role as Jarrod ‘Toadfish’ Rebecchi in 1995, and has stuck around ever since.

Now, he’s filmed his final scenes, and his departure is just weeks away. Thankfully he isn’t leaving the Neighbours family for good, as he’s moved behind the camera and taken a seat in the director’s chair.

A month ago, in a surprise video released on the show’s social media, Ryan announced himself as “formerly Jarrod ‘Toadfish’ Rebecchi from Neighbours”, before explaining, “that’s right, I did say formerly, because after 30 years of playing Toadie, I will be leaving Ramsay Street.”

“I can’t tell you what is going to happen to the character, whether or not we are going to see him again. Maybe I could be the next Jim Robinson and just…” Ryan continued, clutching his chest to imitate the heart attack Jim’s character suffered back in 1993. “Or maybe I’ll be the next Harold Bishop and just keep popping back over the years.”

Jason Herbison, the show’s Executive Producer, added that “there’s every chance [Toadie] will pop back in the future,” but as a little thing like death has never stopped a character from making a reappearance on Ramsay Street, that doesn’t take anything off the table.

While the exact details of Toadie’s Erinsborough departure are still under wraps, he’ll play a big part in the show’s ‘Death in the Outback‘ week, which begins Monday 19th August, and will have repercussions far beyond the dramatic week of episodes.

The week sees Holly head to the outback with her new beau Heath Royce (Ethan Panizza) – the rich and muscular second in command to Tess Carmichael (Anica Calida) who arrives later this week – unaware of the dangers he brings with him.

When Haz (Shiv Palekar) and Mackenzie (Georgie Stone) can’t reach Holly, they resolve to catch the next flight out to the Outback, adamant that something isn’t right.

Meanwhile, Toadie also disappears from Ramsay Street with ex-wife Melanie (Lucinda Cowden). Their unexpected departure soon causes concern among the residents, including his current wife Terese (Rebekah Elmaloglou), who can’t help but fear the worst.

With Neighbours producers teasing that someone won’t be making it back from the outback, could this be the end of Toadie Rebecchi after three decades on the show?

These were some of the final scenes that Ryan would get to film on location. He’s filmed countless dramatic scenes over the years, including driving himself and his first wife Dee (Madeleine West) off a cliff on their wedding day, and the explosion which rocked his wedding to Sonya (Eve Morey), but the upcoming scenes were particularly poignant, coming off the back of Toadie’s current emotional state.

“I think it was something very special to be able to do that kind of content,” Ryan explains. “First of all, of Toadie’s mental health issues and showing the repercussions of all of the traumatic things that have actually happened in his life, you know, come to fruition and he’s very scared and he’s losing his mind.”

“It was a wonderful opportunity to explore these places and show them and then to be involved in such a large scenario, going out into the outback with Neighbours.

“We’d never done something like that, something so large before. So to be part of that was awesome.”

Whatever takes Toadie to the outback, it’s fair to say he’s not in the best headspace. He’s spent the past few weeks being rocked by memories of his ex-wives – first when a song came on which reminded him of the day of Sonya’s death, and then when a postcard arrived from Dee, his very-much-alive first wife who he spent over a decade believing was dead.

A visit to Sonya’s Nursery then took him to the edge, when he realised that his beloved late wife’s business had fallen into disrepair.

“I think probably Toadie’s first love was Dee, and then his true love kind of went to Sonia, and then he’s had some fabulous wives along the way,” Ryan explains when asked if Toadie has a tendency to fall too quickly.

“He’s had some wonderful partners, and I think that that’s part of the trauma, is that there are these wonderful, beautiful women who he has had in his life, and he’s just not been truly available to them, and he’s kind of led them down the garden path, and that’s all part of it.”

Next week sees Toadie head to counselling, reuniting with Rhonda Del Rubio (Rebekah Robertson), who provided him and Terese with marriage guidance last year.

However, it doesn’t help, and he reaches breaking point in the final episode before the dramatic week in the outback.

Overall, Toadie has had a pretty dark year since Neighbours returned to screens in September 2023. While his and Terese’s wedding day was a happy affair, they haven’t had much to celebrate since then.

At first, it seemed that Terese’s work ethic would get in the way of their happiness, with Terese struggling to switch off during their honeymoon, but in the end it was their ex-partners who would cause them the most turmoil.

Toadie couldn’t kick the feeling that Terese was going to leave him for Paul (Stefan Dennis), and his jealousy over their continued connection saw him fall back into the arms of his own ex-wife Melanie.

“I think he’s scared of losing love,” Ryan continues. “So you’ve got Dee who died on his wedding day, but then, as it turns out, was actually alive, so she left him. His next wife was Steph, which was a cover-up, as it was. But then the next love was Sonia, who died and left him.

“And then the next love was Melanie, who left him, but for good reasons. But he’s tragically been hooked up with Terese, and then once he finds out that Melanie left him, it’s just such a complex mix of emotions.

“He’s just so scared of losing love, again, that he just jumps at love at any opportunity, hence why he cheated on Terese with Melanie. He thought that he was going to lose Terese to Paul, and he just grabbed love where he could.

“And so that’s kind of his reasoning as to what happens within his life, and that’s what happens out in the outback, is that he comes to that realisation.”

So did Ryan realise that his character was set for a year-long emotional rollercoaster when he agreed to join the show’s ‘next chapter’?

“No, I didn’t know what the storylines were. I kind of found out along the way,” he reveals.

“And the way you kind of get your scripts, you know, you get them a couple of weeks beforehand. And I very much had to be on top of that in terms of saying, oh, OK, we’re going there now. Right.

“So that means that now I’ve got to build that into this story that I’m shooting right now. And that probably means that I should have already been building it into the story of the stuff I already shot. So then I had to ask for directors’ releases from the producers to actually get ahead of stuff and plot stuff out properly.”

Ryan hints that his character does finally realise just how sad his life in Erinsborough is making him. If he makes it back from the outback alive, could Toadie finally realise that Erinsborough is simply home to too many painful memories?

“There was actually a scene that I shot, where Harold (Ian Smith) smiles at Toadie and Toadie kind of acknowledges and smiles back,” he continues. “And I was like, oh, my God, that is the first time I’ve smiled in, I would say, about six months.

“And it was quite significant. It’s like, oh, my God, I think I might need to leave.”

As for what it was like heading into the outback with the cast and crew he’s worked with for years?

“You know, like when you go on school camp, and everyone bonds together because they had this lived experience. Well, it was very much like that. And the Australian outback is just spectacular.

“It is very, very beautiful. So it was an honour for my going out to be part of that and to have that story be told out there. It was really lovely.”

Ryan also confessed that it wasn’t his decision to leave the show – though he’d been wanting to say goodbye for a while.

Of course, Neighbours’ cancellation back in 2022 finally gave him the exit he’d been waiting for, but he couldn’t resist coming back after Amazon Freevee bought the show just months after its finale.

“Well, it actually wasn’t my choice. It was their choice,” he reveals.

“So, yeah, I’ve been wanting to leave for quite a long time, but Neighbours is one of those jobs that you work with awesome people,” he continues. “You get paid really well. And if you had a mate who had one of these jobs, you’d be saying, oh, mate, what are you doing? You’ve got to stay there. See it out for as long as you can.

“Even if you do want to leave, just suck it up and stay there, mate. And so I’m quite grateful that they actually made that decision for me because I don’t think that I could ever say no to a contract. I think I’d always be kind of like, ‘oh, yes, okay, I’ll do another one’.

“And that’s kind of not the way you want to be doing Neighbours. You don’t want to have that kind of level of resentment in there. So I was very grateful for it.”

So, does he get killed off? Well, that’s under lock and key until the episodes themselves, but Ryan would be happy for his character to go out in a blaze of glory, especially if it meant saving those closest to him.

“In terms of kind of being killed off, I would be happy,” he laughs.

“I’ve always kind of said that if Toadie was going to get killed off, I’d like him to stop a bomb threat in Ramsay Street by jumping on the bomb and saving the lives of everyone, but him just getting blown to pieces.”

As for the happily-ever-after with Terese or Melanie? Well, that seems more and more unlikely with every passing episode.

“It’s just a really bad mix of circumstances that leads to their demise,” Ryan concludes. “But I think probably if there wasn’t the trauma and there wasn’t the issues, then absolutely they could have lived happily ever after. Yeah, but there’s no happily ever after on Neighbours.”

As for whether Toadie does meet his match in the outback, you’ll just have to wait and find out.

Neighbours: Death in the Outback week airs from Monday 19th August.

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