Dan Ewing, star of Home and Away, has reminisced on a trying year in which he was separated from his only son for the majority of 2021.
Dan sat down with 7Entertainment to discuss his impending visit at Oz Comic-Con and how border changes had finally allowed a heartwarming reunion with his seven-year-old son Archie.
Dan talked about how tough it was to be apart from Archie, his kid with ex-wife Marni Little, for four months and how the day they reunited was the “highlight of his year.”
“He was allowed to travel into NSW,” Dan explained, “so we hired a tiny hotel up in Tweeds – practically on the border, and he was able to pass over without having to quarantine since the limits had lifted.”
“I surprised him; I FaceTime with him morning and night, and I was on FaceTime with him, and he was at a restaurant and obviously knew I was going to meet him there, and I was FaceTiming him, and then I peeked over his shoulder and asked him what he was going to get off the menu.”
“He was shocked, it was such a lovely moment,” the star reflected.
Dan has spent the year working in both New South Wales and Victoria, as he has been unable to visit his kid in Queensland for the majority of the year.
“It was just such a huge moment, and it really just makes you take the positive out of things and appreciate the gift of being a father and how much it’s changed my life and my perspective on things,” the former SAS Australia recruit said.
The actor said he was “extremely grateful for FaceTime” as he negotiated the difficult months of forced separation.
He added that every morning at 7.30 a.m., he would phone his son and they would “write down three things [they] are glad for” in a “small gratitude journal.”
“Then he goes to school, and that’s our small bit of father-son bonding,” the former Home and Away star remarked.
Because of his present job commitments, the actor said he is looking forward to “making up for lost time” when the father-son team reunites.
Dan is one of the stars at this year’s Oz Comic-Con, a pop culture festival showing all the newest studio activations, comics, anime, cosplay, and video games, following his involvement in the action movie Occupation: Rainfall.
On the 11th and 12th of December, Dan will attend at Oz Comic-Con Homegrown Melbourne, the first Comic-Con event in Melbourne since 2019.
“It’s this huge pop culture expo, anything goes… the caliber of costumes is phenomenal, it’s a complete spectacle and I love it,” the actor said.