Tessa James On Home & Away, Life After Cancer & Finding Her Rhythm

A week after finishing chemotherapy, Tessa James checked herself into Gwinganna Lifestyle Retreat. After months of survival mode, she was seeking stillness. “I just wanted to sit in my thoughts and eat really beautiful food and do whatever I wanted to,” Tessa recalls.

In the quiet of Tallebudgera Valley, she had space to process what she’d been through, comb through the mountain of advice she’d received, and consider what she wanted for her future. “Where am I going now? How do I look after myself properly? How do I be kinder to myself?” she remembers thinking. “The type of person I am, I had to be careful that I wasn’t going to go all in, 110% again.”

Slowing down was a foreign concept for Tessa. Even as a child growing up in the semi-rural Melbourne suburb of Park Orchards, she was perpetually on the move, remembering a childhood packed with extracurriculars like sport and dance – really anything that would keep her busy. But it was drama that ignited a fire in her belly.

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“I was always very clear that I wanted to be a performer,” she says, and at just five years old, she had already set a formidable bar for herself, looking up to the likes of Reese Witherspoon, Julia Roberts, and Kylie Minogue.

Fuelled by a rare level of ambition and determination for a 13-year-old, Tessa’s parents flew her to Los Angeles to take part in a week-long intensive acting course at Sherman Oaks, learning from casting directors and industry professionals. She returned to Melbourne equipped with a VHS showreel and a mission. That drive and VHS tape would soon land her a role on Neighbours, followed by a series-regular role on Home and Away in 2008, playing fan-favourite Nicole Franklin. By 16, she had moved to Sydney alone to begin working on the iconic show. “I was so excited,” she remembers. “I couldn’t believe my parents let me go.”

Sydney would become one of the most transformational times of her life. There was, of course, the professional triumph of Home and Away – which Tessa still regards as “one of the best jobs [she’s] ever done.” – but there was also Nate Myles, who was then playing for the Sydney Roosters. The pair, who met through mutual friends, were living together within six months of meeting, and by 20, she was married. On how she knew he was “the one” at such a young age, she laughs: “I just knew. I know that’s an annoying answer.”

“I was always very clear that I wanted to be a performer”

When Home and Away wrapped, Tessa followed the trajectory of most young actors and uprooted herself to Los Angeles. She threw herself into auditions, began learning the ropes of Hollywood – opportunities and disappointments and all – until a world-shattering diagnosis upended her life, forcing her to return to Australia to begin treatment and be close to family. At 23, after finding a lump on her neck, Tessa was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma.

The diagnosis was a shock, but Tessa found an unexpected source of hope in a situation that had previously been the cause of anguish. Her father, former AFL player Stephen James, had recently undergone treatment for non-Hodgkin lymphoma himself, and Tessa found a profound sense of kinship in their shared experience. “He had gotten through it, and that was really inspiring to me,” Tessa says. “My dad and I navigated that together, which was amazing”.

Approaching her recovery with the same grit she applied to her career, Tessa viewed the treatment as “a job” that she simply had to get through. After six gruelling months of chemotherapy, she finally reached remission – a moment that was met with an overwhelming feeling of relief. “I had so many things I wanted to do,” she recalls. “I was ready to get my life back.” But as she transitioned from the sanctuary of Gwinganna back into her routine, the physical and emotional fallout hit harder than she expected, leaving her struggling to re-find her identity.

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She spent a year “trying to feel herself again,” leaning into alternative medicine, clean eating, and self-care – daily rituals that were born out of the desire for stability, but remain central to how she lives today. She laughs now, remembering one particularly extreme wellness phase, hunting down a stranger on the Gold Coast who had an infrared sauna in his spare bedroom – a rarity 10 years ago.

Through this slow process of rebuilding, and with the benefit of hindsight, her perspective on that time has shifted. “I have so much grace for that girl now,” she says. “She taught me that you can’t give 110% all the time. Instead, I’m trying to be 50% ­ – to know when to go in hard, then know when to pull back and look after myself. You need to find the rhythm of life.”

Eventually, that lesson was put to the test when Tessa, alongside her family, returned to LA to further pursue her acting career, only to face a hard truth: she was doing what she’d dreamed of since she was five, but she wasn’t happy. A lot had changed since she was last there: now, she was a mother and a cancer survivor. While Nate stayed home to care for their first son, Saynt, Tessa found herself back in the cycle of auditions. “I had to ask myself, ‘Is this really what I want to do still?’” she says. “I’d been doing it for so long, and I think I was after another creative outlet that was satisfying to me. And maybe, ultimately, I just wanted to be a mum”.

“Somehow, it always works out exactly the way it’s meant to”

It took nearly two years to come to terms with that choice, but that decision shaped the Tessa I’m speaking with today: creatively inclined, endlessly busy, but grounded and fulfilled. Now, she pours her energy into a multi-hyphenate career as a creative consultant, working across industries spanning wellness, fashion, and interior design. Though the medium has changed, at the heart of it all, her passion remains storytelling. “When I was acting, I had a character and I would study that character. It’s not too dissimilar to what I do now.”

Her current creative energy is also channelled into Next Level League, a youth NRL development camp she runs with Nate. While she oversees the creative direction, Nate, alongside peers like Todd Carney and Jarrod Croker, mentors the next generation of athletes.

Working alongside her husband in this capacity feels like a natural extension of their nearly 15-year marriage – a partnership Tessa credits to a shared history of growth and the art of compromise. “That series of compromise can become quite a nice dance,” she reflects. “You find this really nice rhythm of being each other’s support system and only wanting the best for each other.”

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Off the back of a recent return to the Gold Coast, the family of six is settling into a new season. It’s a homecoming to a place Tessa and Nate have circled back to a few times before, but this time, with four children in tow, it feels entirely different. “For us, at this time in our lives, it’s a really great place to be,” she says.

This chapter is anchored by her family – her “little tribe,” as she calls them – and by the changed perspective motherhood has provided her with. For the actor, it’s been the most formative role yet. “They’ve really allowed me to live life a second time,” she says.

If her story has been marked by change and reinvention, adversity and resilience, it seems her greatest strength lies in her ability to pivot without losing her way. Tessa describes it best herself: “I’ve always loved change. I embrace it. Does it always work out the way you expect? No. But somehow, it always works out exactly the way it’s meant to.”

Photography: Chris Ferguson / Talent: Tessa James / Styling: Tessa Law / Hair: Chris Coonrod / Makeup: Satya Schmitz / Location: Mondrian Gold Coast / Agent: Morgan Hill