Melissa Tkautz: SAS Australia contestant on why the 'Me Too' movement matters

But, she admits there were times in her early days in the industry "that felt not right" or "you might get touched in a weird place".

The Me Too movement has changed things dramatically for young, vulnerable up-and-coming stars - just like she was, in the late 1980s and early 90s - and she's praised people like Brittany Higgins and Grace Tame for speaking out.

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"I think the more people who speak out, the more awareness we have of the massive problem that's happening in the world," she said.

The mother of two, 12-year-old Ayla and eight-year-old Cuba, showed her natural charisma at a Northern Beaches Review photo shoot at the newly renovated Harbord Hotel, before sitting sat down with us at the home she shares with her husband and the love of her life Kwesi Nicholas in the leafy suburbs around Frenchs Forest. It was just a few days before her latest TV venture, SAS Australia, goes to air on February 21.

Tkautz, 48, admits she's a lot tougher these days than she used to be. After all, who voluntarily goes on a show where you're set on fire, submerged in a plane in water and pushed to your absolute limits mentally and physically?

Way before Tkautz was a familiar face on Richmond Hill and Home and Away in the late 1980s and then E Street in the early 90s, she was a child actor and model.

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She started in the industry at five years old, with her first commercial for Popeye branded Band-Aids. She was in a boat on the water with a man dressed as Popeye and she was worried she might fall in.

"I was in the boat with five other kids, and in the actual commercial you can actually see me crying and freaking out. It's so funny," she said.

She was also in Australia's very first M&Ms commercial, and the first McDonald's breakfast ad.

"I loved doing commercials when I was younger," Tkautz said.

Her fame rose when at 16 years old she joined E Street (which was partly filmed in the northern beaches), playing the role of Nikki Spencer. At 17, her debut single Read My Lips was number one on the music charts. She went on to appear in a string of shows, including Paradise Beach, Pacific Drive, All Saints, and Swift and Shift Couriers.

"There were a lot of times when you are on set and you might get touched in a weird place and you think 'oh God'," she said. "They wouldn't get away with that now, a smack on the arse or whatever it may be. I was so naive those first couple of years in the industry, I was too scared to say boo let alone to say stop."

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Tkautz said while nothing more ever happened to her on set, she knows "many stories of things that happened to children that weren't right and untoward".

"Being in the industry from a very young age, especially in the acting industry from the age of 15, you do develop a thick skin very, very quickly. I just got a lot of street smart sense about me at a very, very young age," she said.

"I always had a chaperone and I avoided a lot of those situations where I was around people who were drunk, or drugs."

Tkautz said it's "about bloody time" that things have changed, and women and children are now much better protected.

"The laws around being on set that protect children are now so amazing, back then we had none of that protection," she said.

"Women finally have the respect that they deserve and we're not treated as the second rate citizen. I feel as though a woman has finally earnt the respect that she deserves when she walks into a room. It's not just ogling over her. It's you have to treat me with respect and you can't just touch me on the bottom."

Tkautz knew straight away that she wanted to be involved in SAS Australia when she was asked in the middle of last year's COVID lockdown.

"You get to my age and it's exciting to challenge yourself with crazy things like this," she said. "It's not quite the midlife crisis thing, I'd definitely buy a car if I was having a midlife crisis.

"It just came at a time where mentally, I think everyone was going through that whole cabin fever thing where you're facing the unknown.

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"It was daunting and scary, but there is a level of being intrigued about what it would be like [to be on the show], about a lifetime experience, about the challenge of it."

And was it as hard as she thought it would be? Absolutely!

"People say it's 99 per cent mental, but that's bullshit," she said. "Yes, mentally you've got to be strong, but if you're not physically strong then it doesn't matter how mentally strong you are.

"I knew I wasn't going to be there at the end because I know I'm fit, but these people [fellow competitors] are trained athletes, they're Olympians, they're very strong individuals."

Tkautz admits she thought about quitting the show every single day because it was so hard, but she stuck it out and learnt a lot about herself in the process.

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"I learnt that I am stubborn and that I am a lot more mentally stronger than what I give myself credit for," she said. "I loved the discipline of being there, I loved that aspect of having to keep your bed a certain way, of having to keep your uniform a certain way. I've got OCD so having all of that structure I absolutely loved.

"I was extremely proud of myself that I would take something on like this because I am a very private person. The only other reality TV show I've done is [Real] Housewives [of Sydney].

"It's very daunting for people who have come from an acting background, it's very daunting to put yourself out there as yourself and not as a character that you're playing."

The 2022 season of SAS Australia features 17 celebrities, including Tkautz, who embark on a series of grueling physical and psychological tests from the SAS selection process. The other contestants are:

The show premiers at 7.30pm on Monday, February 21 on Channel 7 and 7plus.

For lovers of reality TV show Real Housewives on Sydney, Tkautz said it was just as catty as you'd imagine, although there were some good parts too.

The one-season-only show aired in 2017 and Tkautz was one of seven women who took part.

"I just couldn't believe some of the arguments that were happening and I was witnessing, it was just a bit overwhelming," she said.

"There was certain instances where I just wanted to find a hole in the wall and get out of there. I'm not a confrontational person, I'm not an argumentative person so I found all the cattiness very scary.

"But, having said that, there was some magical times, it was so much fun. All the dressing up and the events, all of that were just so much fun."

She may have had first hit the music charts as a teen with Read My Lips, but Tkautz has been recording ever since. Reminiscing back to her early days as a recording artist, she admits it was a crazy and surreal time.

"I was on stage every second night, I was on set everyday, I was having to learn lines and travelling here, there and everywhere," she said.

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Just days before this interview, Tkautz had met with her producer as she gets ready to go back into the recording studio. She's got two new tracks in the works, one of which she's co-writing.

"I've got an amazing loyal fan base that stuck with me and I had been releasing music and performing it in clubs all around Australia and then COVID hit and it's been very, very quiet," she said.

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