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Rove McManus and Tasma Walton

Rove McManus and Tasma Walton.

Tasma Walton talks TV role on City Homicide, life with Rove McManus and first novel called Heartless

IT WAS the moment actress Tasma Walton and her comedian husband Rove McManus had been waiting for all year, but it wasn?t their wedding day.

>While both would concur their intimate beach nuptials in Broome in June were one of the year's highlights, the day Walton opened the box containing her first novel, Heartless, was one to savour. Even after she struggled with the writing process. "A few weeks into it I was like, 'Oh my God, give me an acting job', it was horrible actually," says Walton of writing the book, which hits shelves in October.

"It requires an awful amount of discipline and I am not renowned for that quality. It is lonely and you’re isolated. It was certainly a labour of love, but at times I was aching for a communal experience as an actor again just so I could hang out with people.”

The former Blue Heelers actress, who won over the police show’s fans in the leading role of Dash, took a decade to write the book about a seven-year-old girl whose heart hardens to the world as she prepares to face the future without love.

Every girl has had a time where there’s no flutter in their heart, and Walton (pictured) is no exception. However, now happily married, sharing her accomplishments with the person she loves makes it all the sweeter.

"To be with (Rove) is very important," the 35-year-old says while promoting her new role as police profiler, Detective Senior Sergeant Claudia Leigh, in Channel 7’s City Homicide. "I’m enjoying married life and feeling like I’m 60 because everyone calls me Mrs McManus."

Walton is intensely protective of her private life with McManus, and has learned to deal with the pair’s relationship being splashed across the front pages of gossip magazines around the nation.

But it doesn’t mean Walton is comfortable with it. Since the couple began dating in October 2007, a year after McManus lost his first wife, actress Belinda Emmett, to cancer, the Logie Award winner has been thrust further into the spotlight.

"It (the interest in our relationship) is a bit disconcerting because I don’t think I am particularly interesting as an individual. I think my work is far more interesting than what I do at home," she says.

"In the initial phase (of our relationship) it was quite overwhelming. For most of those magazine covers they haven’t spoken to me at all so it’s make-believe really. But if people are reading about me in regards to (my personal life), and then watch the show, then I’m very happy."

One would imagine being married to a comedian brings light relief but also pressure to crack premium gags, but Walton says the pair fit like a glove.

"It’s actually really great because I can tend to be a bit glass half-empty and he is certainly glass half-full. It’s a really nice balance and he helps me just to see the light of life, really," admits Walton, who says McManus is far too busy with his own projects to help her learn her lines at home. "Oh man, that guy is so busy it’s frightening. No, I am left to my own devices a lot to learn my lines by myself."

Walton emerged into the acting world through non-institutional teaching means, and says she was initially distressed when her turn at NIDA didn’t last two years.

"It wasn’t the kind of environment that encouraged me to be my best," the actress says matter-of-factly.

"It was really quite devastating (when I didn’t finish) and it was a real test of faith and belief in myself. I always see the choice of being an actor as a vocational one and that almost means you can’t do anything else really. It’s part of your character and well-being to be doing it. Luckily, I was only 20 (when I quit NIDA), I was still able to bounce back and feel like I had my whole life ahead of me still. I got the acting bug when I was 14, even though I was in denial about wanting to be an actor, and here I am."

Securing the semi-regular role on City Homicide was quite organic for Walton. She relocated to Melbourne to be with McManus and when the show’s producer MaryAnne Carroll heard of Walton’s move, she pounced.

"She asked me if I would be interested in doing something that recurs because they were thinking about a profiling character, which interested me immediately because it’s not a straightforward police role," Walton says. "It’s something a little bit intellectual and quite different to what I have played before. The criminal mind is fascinating."

By Erin McWhirter and Megan Miller
August 05, 2009
The Daily Telegraph