Actor Scott Smart is a very happy man. He might have played Shortland Street‘s unlucky-in-love Dr Marty Walker for the past three years, but behind the scenes, he has been very lucky indeed.
Married to fellow actor Elizabeth Nabben, Scott has a steady job, a cosy new home and, as the icing on the cake, the couple welcomed their first child in March this year.
“Ever since Edward was born, we love nothing more than staying home and hanging out on the floor with him,” says Elizabeth, adding with a laugh, “Scott especially loves the unexpected joy of finding tiny socks all over the house!”
The pair’s love story began 12 years ago, when Scott was living in Melbourne and hunting for a flat.
“I was studying there, doing my Master’s in biotechnology, when one day I took a little detour on my way home and saw a handwritten ‘Flatmate Wanted’ sign in a bookshop, for a room in a rundown old house,” he recalls.
Chimes in Elizabeth, “There were five of us in the flat and after we interviewed Scott, we offered him the room.”
“Only the walls were collapsing,” laughs Scott. “It even had a feature wall of mould and a rat problem.”
He moved in and despite the grotty backdrop, love blossomed.
‘We love nothing more than staying home and hanging out on the floor’
“I definitely knew he was cute,” Elizabeth admits. “But when he moved in, he had this huge backpack and I tried to hug him. Being a South Island farm boy, Scott kept his arms down, so the hug was quite awkward.
“We were just friends for ages. Then Mum met him and she was like, ‘You have to snap him up or someone else will!'”
Scott blushes a little. “There was definitely an attraction,” he confesses. “But when we realised we really liked each other, we worried that if we got together officially, the other flatmates might ask us to move out because we were a couple.”
Those worries proved unfounded and, as the couple fell head over heels, Scott finished his science degree and Elizabeth threw herself into her acting studies at the Victorian College of the Arts.
Clearly still as smitten as they were in those early days, Elizabeth reveals the moment she realised Scott was the one.
“He told me a story about how his family would go out in the middle of the night in snowstorms, find lambs and take them home to warm them in front of the fire. That’s when I knew I loved him.”
Baby Edward’s already a natural in front of the camera
Scott eventually put science on hold in favour of his burgeoning acting career and the couple moved to Sydney when Elizabeth was offered a lead role, playing Desdemona in Bell Shakespeare’s Othello at The Sydney Opera House.
From there, the talented twosome were offered roles in everything from Neighbours and Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries to Winners and Losers. And with the world at their feet, it felt right to formalise their relationship.
“We’d been together for about eight years, so I decided to propose on her 29th birthday,” recalls Scott. “On the day, she had breakfast with her mum and was wearing a beautiful dress, and I suggested we go to the beach under the guise of a birthday picnic.”
But it wasn’t quite the romantic scene he’d pictured in his head.
“Elizabeth changed into these stinky old togs,” he tells. “When I asked if she wanted to wear pants, she said no, so it was a pants-less proposal.
“When we got to the beach, I went down on one knee. Only Elizabeth went down on one knee too. ‘No’ I said, ‘you have to stand up!’ By this stage, people had stopped to watch and I was thinking, ‘Please say yes.'”
The couple married on Scott’s family farm in 2019
Of course, Elizabeth said yes and while they were preparing for their wedding back in New Zealand – on Scott’s family farm on the Canterbury Plains – he auditioned for the role of Marty Walker in Shortland Street.
“I was literally in a fitting room trying on wedding suits at Bondi Junction Westfield when I got the call to say I had the role,” he reveals. “To top it off, Marty was going to be a big part of the Christmas cliffhanger and I was terrified it would clash with the wedding.”
As a seasoned actor herself, Elizabeth was well aware that lucky breaks don’t come along every day, so the pair decided to say yes and figure it all out later.
Scott was already two weeks into the fast-paced life of shooting the popular Kiwi soap when the pair flew to the South Island for their October 2019 nuptials. He had a script in one hand and his vows in the other.
“I was trying so hard not to get the two confused because we couldn’t be at the altar and have me start reeling off medical dialogue,” he grins.
Scott as Shorty’s Dr Marty Walker
Their big day went swimmingly until the end of the reception, when the happy couple were driving back to their accommodation and came across a ewe giving birth right by the fence line.
“It was 3am, but anyone who’s grown up on a farm knows you can’t see an animal in trouble and ignore them,” tells Scott. “So I took off my suit and got down to my underwear – although I kept my shoes on – and I lambed the ewe. Then we drove to our wedding night accommodation with me covered in afterbirth!”
Thanks to Scott’s secure Shortland Street contract, the newlyweds then set out to buy a house – although it took more than two years of going to open homes before their dream came true.
“When we went to the auction where we actually bought a house, I wore a flash-looking suit I’d bought in a Shortland Street costume department sale, in order to the look the part,” laughs Scott. “Then something even better happened than buying the house, because that night we went home and baby Edward was conceived.”
Australian-born Elizabeth enjoyed an easy pregnancy, although the pandemic made for some complications.
“Scott couldn’t come to any of the scans and I didn’t see my mum at all during my pregnancy because borders were closed,” says Elizabeth. But she was still able to teach her acting students by Zoom and she turned her wardrobe into an audio studio so she could still do voiceovers, including on the animated Netflix series 100% Wolf.
On March 13 this year, Scott and Elizabeth welcomed little Edward André Smart into the world. His middle name is a tribute to Elizabeth’s late father who died of cancer when she was just 15 months old.
“Because my father passed away when I was a baby, for me to watch Scott as a dad, being so supportive and involved, it makes me realise how important my first few months were for me with my own father,” says Elizabeth, who treasures the photos she has of her dad holding her as a baby.
Losing her dad when she was a tot, Elizabeth says the bond between Scott and Edward is “very healing for me”
“I also have a beautiful voice recording from when I was about nine weeks old of Dad talking to me. So I made a similar recording of Scott, and to see him and Edward so close and to witness that attachment, and know how significant the father-child relationship is so early on, that has been very healing for me.”
Continues Scott, “Edward brings us joys we never imagined, although we try not to be too vocal about how incredible parenthood is, as we do feel for those people who are having fertility struggles. But that this little baby brings us so much peace and at the same time so much energy, it’s amazing.
“We just want to raise him to be kind and robust, and to hold on to as much joy as he already has.”
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