Neighbours star talks Mackenzie's journey as she heads into surgery

After a lot of build-up, she is finally heading in for her gender confirmation surgery in scenes set to air next week and RadioTimes.com has been chatting to actress Georgie Stone about how Mackenzie is feeling as she heads to the hospital.

"She has enormous support around her and that really helps her," Stone says of the family and friends that have taken Mackenzie in since she first arrived in Erinsborough. Two of those people though, Shane and Dipi Rebecchi (Nicholas Coghlan and Sharon Johal) are currently not on the best of terms and Mackenzie is set on putting things right between them before her operation.

"Mackenzie just wants to see people happy and it really breaks her heart to see Shane and Dipi going through this really hard time." She also knows that it was dealing with her father that led to this latest rift and feels a degree of responsibility to help fix things.

It isn't just the Rebcchi's that are on hand to help her. Harlow Robinson (Jemma Donovan) insists she will be there every step of the way, as does boyfriend Richie Amblin (Lachie Millar) who is with her as she heads into the operating room- despite some miscommunication between them nearly causing a rift just before. "Richie is her rock and their relationship is going from strength to strength," Stone said of the pairing, indicating that no end is in sight for the loved up couple.

Neighbours has won acclaim for how it has handled Mackenzie's journey since the character was introduced, originally as a guest role, last year. The soap, which prides itself on representation has given us some powerful scenes- including an emotional reading of Mackenzie's diaries which Stone herself was asked to help craft alongside showrunner, Jason Herbison.

"I wrote the diary entries and edited them with Jason. I was really thrilled to be asked to write them because Jason wanted them to be as authentic as possible, I chose the years for each event or personal moment for Mackenzie, I was very involved."

We also asked Stone whether she thinks there could be any friction on the way between Mackenzie and Yashvi Rebecchi (Olivia Junkeer) given that one is studying to be a lawyer whilst the other is now part of the police. "That would be incredible, and I would really, really love that! They are both very fiery characters with strong opinions so it would be really interesting." So do we!

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