This article may contain Home and Away spoilers for viewers.

Home and Away star Emily Symons shared that she’s “nervous” about how people will react to the confrontation scenes she’s shooting.

Her character, Marilyn Chambers, is known for being one of the most kind-hearted residents in Summer Bay. But, after being exposed to the recent poison gas attack during a black-tie event at Salt, she suffers a change in personality as an after-effect.

The actress spoke with TV Week, saying that she was shocked when she learned what was coming up for her character. After doing her own research, she later discovered that organophosphate poisoning is a “very real thing”.

Symons explained that changes to the victim’s brain and behaviour might occur after such poisoning, but otherwise, everything else remains normal.

"This is the most challenging thing I've ever done as Marilyn," she said. "It's a completely different Marilyn, which has been really hard to play because she's second nature to me now."

Playing as the nasty version of herself has been Emily’s greatest challenge on the show; the actress even said that the altered character "had to be dragged out of me".

“Some days, I was like, 'I can't say that – that's so horrible.' But I had to go there to make the story work."

Another example was her scene with Lynne McGranger, where Emily had to yell at her. She would apologise after every take for the tirade she had just delivered and compared it to "having a fight with your best friend".

"It was confronting," she said. "But it was a good acting course. I was playing the opposite of Marilyn. All her character traits evaporated – suddenly, she's argumentative, hostile, and furious with John (Shane Withington). The crew really enjoyed a bit of a change."

When asked how she felt about the viewers' reaction to the new Marilyn, Emily said, "I'm a bit nervous," but added that she hoped they would understand.