Testify star Craig Hall lands role on Neighbours - Spy

Hall, 49, starred as Scott Jacobsen on Testify.

Fresh off playing the father of the AVOW church on TVNZ’s Testify, actor Craig Hall has been cast as an estranged dad on Aussie soap Neighbours.

The finale of the Kiwi drama screened on TVNZ2 earlier this week.

Hall, 49, starred as Scott Jacobsen, the wealthy, middle-aged family man at the helm of a powerful evangelical church, with long slicked-back dark grey hair and a penchant for fast cars and motorbikes.

On Wednesday this week, Hall posted a picture of himself with short hair, posing in a suburban kitchen with Neighbours’ star Annie Jones, who plays Jane Harris.

“Meet Vic Stone ...” Hall wrote on Instagram. ”Jane’s ex-husband is about to rock up on Ramsay Street, but will she be welcoming him with open arms?”

Hall also posed the question of how his character’s estranged children, Nicolette and Byron, would react to the arrival of their father.

Hall added his character Vic is certainly set to cause a stir when he arrives next month and he couldn’t wait for audiences to “meet this fella”.

Hall is a big star on both sides of the Tasman. The Australian press announced him as a former A Place to Call Home star heading to Neighbours.

Aussie publications report that Hall will first appear on Neighbours on May 14.

The long-running hit Australian show, which started in 1985 and clocked up nearly 9000 episodes over 38 seasons, finished up in July 2022.

Just months after Ramsay Street residents past and present gathered for the week-long finale, streaming giant Prime Video announced it was bringing back a new, grittier version of the show.

Reports say plans for Hall’s character Vic - who has often been mentioned on screen but never seen - to enter the show was in the pipeline a few years ago, but never eventuated.

Now, with Prime Video rebooting the show and screening it internationally, including in the US, Hall will have a whole new fan base.

Hall joins fellow Kiwi actors Morgana O’Reilly and Jay Ryan, who both have starred on the hit show.

Neighbours screens on TVNZ 2, TVNZ + and Prime Video in New Zealand