Truly, madly, deeply...

Aussie actress Tammy MacIntosh reveals a heavenly secret – she’s found the love of her life.

 

Tammy MacIntosh is loud and proud about her love life. The All Saints star has fallen madly in love, and the man who’s captured the heart of the 34-year-old actress is Sydney freelance audio engineer Mark Yeats.

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“I want to get engaged and I want to get married, and I want to have children with this man,” enthuses Tammy in this exclusive interview with Woman’s Day.

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It’s not difficult to see that Tammy, who plays lesbian medico Dr Charlotte Beaumont in the Seven Network series and has a cult following for her role as Joolushko Tunai Fenta Hovalis in TV’s Farscape, is on cloud nine.

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She and Mark, 29, recently sealed their love with a romantic two-week getaway to Broome’s Cable Beach Club Resort.

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As the pressures of city life melted away over consistently warm and dry days, the pair were pampered and spoilt in the historic Pearling Port in Western Australia. They sampled the local seafood, lay by the pool in the heart of the resort, had soothing massages and went for camel rides at sunset. The also went for a dip in the Indian Ocean, until Mark was stung by jellyfish. Luckily there was a Doctor on hand…

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Where did you meet?

We met on Valentine's Day at my birthday party, even though the real date is February 16th. I had a combined party with an assistant director friend of mine. We thought it was a great night to celebrate our birthdays and have our single friends who didn’t have Valentines with us, rather than being alone. A friend of mine brought Mark to the party and the minute I saw him, I just knew. He arrived late in the night, and there was that instant feeling of “I know you,” a connection I’d never had before. Was is love at first site? I always thought that was a bit naff. I don’t believe you think in love terms when you first meet someone, you just don’t. It was a connection, something pre-ordained.

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How fast did affairs of the heart progress?

We caught up with one another the next day, and still I had that same feeling, that connection, knowing this person way beyond what you should. He and I would just look at one another like we had known each other for years. And we talked and talked. The following day he came to take me out to lunch, which is my actual birthday, so I’d seen him three days in a row. From that lunch, we have been locked at the hip.

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How can you be so confident going public with your love and about the future when it's still fresh and new?

Because I can feel it with every molecule of my body. There are things I’ve known in my life about myself and this is the same – a sure, calm, consistent feeling that I know to be true. It's my instinct working at its best. There have also been times in my life when I thought I’ve been right about men, but you don’t get this complete all over sensation of truth about you. You get a little bit of it and then try to manufacture the rest to make it work. I don’t have to manufacture anything about this relationship.

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How is this time so different from every other relationship you’ve had?

I’m 34 years old and I’ve had a good six to eight long-term relationships and none of them have given me this feeling of completion, serenity, being absolutely loved and being in a place where I belong. I have often tried to scrutinise or sabotage relationships, been cynical, desperate, tried to look for faults in my partners and have, most times, found them. But even when I haven’t found them, somehow they have presented themselves to me in the long run. There’s not a single thing I can doubt about Mark, or try to be cynical about. I love him completely.

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What does Mark do for you that’s so special?

He does this thing. He tells me he loves me completely out of the blue. It's at times when you least expect it. I always wake up at 5:30am and you know, you’ve got sleep in your eyes and your hair's a bird's nest, your mouth is dry and you’ve probably got the worst breath on the planet. How can somebody look at you in that state and find the inspiration to tell you they love you?

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How do you relax together?

On the lunch on day three he suggested we go on a holiday to China together. It just started like it was already in the middle of a relationship. We walked into each other's lives both obviously wanting [a relationship], but not realising it because neither of us were looking. As weeks went by, I worked out my breaks and China was a bit too backpacker-paced for me after 10 weeks of working 14-hour days on All Saints, so I needed a resort. I needed to lay around being massaged, eating really good food and not doing much at all, so we decided on Cable Beach Resort at Broome.

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How did you find the two weeks in Broome?

Broome is such a slow-paced town when you compare it to Sydney’s hectic style. It took me four days to stop going, “Can I have that champagne now!” by the fourth day, I was going, “Tomorrows fine.” So it took time to wind down, but then Mark and I were so calm. We had a beautiful time together its so gushy. I apologise to every reader about how gushy this must sound, and I’m going to cry again.

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Do you think love means more to you now that you are in your 30’s?

It's so good as you get older. And it's true, because you get to an age where you’ve have so much experience and you have to know a few things about yourself and you get to realise what’s true and what’s not. I feel like I’m in a perfect position at this time of my life to know this relationship is a really great thing and to appreciate it and not try and tear it apart, but just to be thankful for it.

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Is Mark “the one”?

I have absolute faith in that. I don’t think anyone in life can be 100% sure. None of us get guarantees. We’re such a throwaway society. A friend of mine had broken up with his girlfriend and he was trying to do all the talking and emoting and he said this girl was just so into self-preservation that when things got hard, she just wanted to trade him in and look for something easier. He said that’s what relationships have become – if its too hard go and find another one, like you’re out shopping for them.

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What are your feelings about marriage?

Who has the perfect marriage? People can say they do and I know I’m gushing about Mark, but I’m sure we will have our moments, too. Every day in a relationship can’t be perfect. But this relationship just feels right. I don’t want it to be perfect. I’ve had my grumpy days and so has Mark, and I love him when he’s grumpy and he has the ability to snap me out of it by being cheeky or stupid or incredibly funny. To want to stay with someone and work out all the things that could go wrong and get through the many challenges in life and be poor together and support each others lives is what it's all about. Neither of us have talked about marriage, but it just seems perfectly natural to me. If it's right, it just is. I want to get engaged, I want to get married and I want to have kids with this man. Let's just see if he can put up with me for long enough!

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Of course, your character on All Saints, Dr Charlotte Beaumont, is a lesbian. How do you and Mark cope with that?

I love playing Charlotte, she’s an incredibly strong woman. All the fan mail I receive is very supportive of her and I find that whether she’s gay or straight is irrelevant to her popularity. It's taken two years for Charlotte to have her first relationship on the show and I’m very excited for her.