Jordan Patrick Smith is the Fifer who ran riot on Ramsay Street.
And Neighbours chiefs had to rejig his character Andrew Robinson’s back story because producers were so thrown by his accent.
But it wasn’t long before his dulcet tones were charming Donna Freedman, famously played by future Hollywood superstar Margot Robbie.
Their on-screen affair was just one of a number of dramatic storylines involving the Scot’s alter ego, whose character earned the reputation of Ramsay Street rebel.
Jordan and Margot were reunited when they joined the enormous list of stars including Jason Donovan and Kylie Minogue taking part in the series finale, which airs on Channel 5 on Friday evening at 9pm.
The famous faces returned to their roles to say goodbye to Ramsay Street where the goings-on have been a staple on British screens for 36 years.
Who is Jordan Patrick Smith?
Jordan, from Dunfermline, was born in 1989.
He played football 24/7 when growing up and dreamed of playing for the Pars before a family holiday to Australia in 2001 changed his life completely!
Jordan’s parents fell in love with the Aussie lifestyle and weather and the family left Scotland behind and emigrated to Brisbane in 2003 when he was 13.
The 33-year-old took up surfing when he arrived in Australia but it was starting school in Oz that set Jordan on the path which would eventually lead to Ramsay Street.
Jordan took up drama and fell in love with it before things really took off when he performed in a play called Blackrock in Year 10.
His mum told him: “You’re actually pretty damn good. You can give this a pop.”
Jordan decided he wanted to take up acting professionally and got himself an agent but he found that one particular thing was standing in his way.
He said: “Trying to act in Australia with a Scottish accent was definitely difficult.
“I missed out on so many roles because of my accent. I hadn’t had extensive training, so when I went into the audition room, I was concentrating more on the acting.
“Then afterwards, they’d be like: ‘What’s going on with that accent?’
“I was like: ‘That’s just how I talk.’”
With his golden locks and blue eyes, Jordan managed to pick up a few bit-part roles on TV while also trying to make a living in regular jobs to pay the bills.
His breakthrough was going for an audition up in Queensland for Neighbours in 2009.
Jordan got the role of Andrew Robinson, the estranged son of Paul, although he thought he was going to have to turn it down following a nasty accident that almost scuppered his chances of taking up an epic role in the long-running soap opera.
That’s because Jordan had been working as a labourer lifting up concrete floors to help make ends meet when some of the concrete flew up and hit him in the face.
“My nose was swollen and became infected, so I was on a drip on antibiotics for a week,” he said.
He received a phone call on the Friday night following three days in hospital, saying he needed to be in Melbourne on Monday at 7am to start rehearsals.
The doctor wanted him to keep him in until Monday so he arrived in Melbourne on the Wednesday and was told his first scenes were being shot on the Thursday.
What was Andrew’s back story?
The character first appeared in 1991 as the baby of Paul (Neighbours stalwart Stefan Dennis) and Christina Robinson (Gayle Blakeney).
The family moved to Brazil while Paul was on the run after framing his brother-in-law for fraud where Andrew was supposed to have grown up for nine years.
The Neighbours make-up artist covered up his bruises although the left-hand side of his face was about a centimetre bigger than the right-hand side in his first scene!
His Scottish accent presented a problem to the Ramsay Street scriptwriters and his character’s back story was rejigged to accommodate Jordan’s voice.
He was in the soap from 2009-13 and kept his dulcet tones, after it was written into the plot that the character had spent many years living with his mum in Scotland.
A spokeswoman for Five confirmed in 2009 that the character was initially meant to have been brought up in Brazil “but the Scottish accent changed that”.
She added: “The character is well travelled and did live in Brazil but wasn’t born there.”
Jordan said: “The producers have been fantastic in accommodating my accent.
“I have had to refine it so the other cast members and audience can understand me. Although I still get that ‘what the hell did he just say?’ about every second scene.”
Jordan’s time in the show was certainly colourful including an on-screen one-night stand with Donna Freedman and a love triangle with Natasha and Summer.
He even seduced Margot’s character Donna whilst wearing a Celtic top.
Jordan was also given a big storyline after his character’s whole life changes following a diagnosis of epilepsy after a series of unexplained blackouts.
He told Epilepsy Today magazine in 2012: “We had a story meeting when we got the new producers in. They have a big dinner and talk to everyone about their new storylines. When they told me that Andrew had epilepsy, I was excited to be honest.
“It’s great to do something that’s of great importance, instead of just talking about relationship dramas. It’s been great to take on a real personal challenge.
“When they first told me, I didn’t have any idea what issues would be facing someone with epilepsy. I’ve got mates who are living with epilepsy. One of my mates I used to surf with is living with it, he developed it when he was about 19.
“He didn’t talk about it that much. But the more I looked into it and the more I read about it, the more I realised how it affects you personally.”
Jordan was very conscientious in researching the condition and the effect that it might have on his character so that he could act it convincingly onscreen.
He eventually left Ramsay Street in 2013 when Jordan’s character and his girlfriend, Natasha, were getting ready to travel around Europe.
What happened next?
He co-starred in Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken in 2014 and the BBC series Banished in 2015 before joining the main cast of HBO’s Vikings from 2016-2020.
Jordan returns to our screens in Neighbours this Friday, with the finale airing on Channel 5 at 9pm.
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