Ryan Lee

Ryan Lee is a fictional character from the Australian soap opera Home and Away, played by Alistair MacDougall. He made his first screen appearance on 22 August 1991. Ryan was MacDougall's first television role after previously working as a model. Ryan is characterised as a rich, good time guy with a selfish and manipulative personality. The character was introduced into the series as the ex-boyfriend of Lucinda Croft (Dee Smart). He arrives hoping to reconcile their relationship but is shocked to find her coupled with Nick Parrish (Bruce Roberts). Writers played the two characters as complete opposites and Nick the dependable policeman. Ryan was portrayed embarking on a series of schemes to snare Lucinda from Nick. The love triangle story gained notoriety in Australia where MacDougall feared for his public safety and Smart was verbally abused by men in the streets. The story ended with Lucinda leaving both Ryan and Nick to live alone in Perth. Producers wanted MacDougall to join the show's regular cast but he declined. In late 1992, he returned for one final time to give the character some closure. Casting MacDougall was a model before he took the role of Ryan in Home and Away. It was his first television role. When he auditioned for the part casting directors were "so impressed" that they did not consider his lack of experience and offered him a two-year contract. However, MacDougall only stayed with the soap for a year. When the actor departed in late 1992, he told Josephine Monroe from Inside Soap that because he loved playing Ryan, he would go back for a cameo appearance as long as the scriptwriters made his character bad. He added "I would have stayed longer before if the scripts had been good enough." Development MacDougall described Ryan as a rich, good time guy "who happens to be a bastard!" He explained that Ryan was not very nice, calling him "egotistical, self-centred, and worldly so he knows how to pull off a few scams and set things up to advantage." Ryan does not mind seeing other people suffer if they are in his way. An Inside Soap reporter commented that MacDougall and Ryan "are poles apart".