Claudia Karvan has opened up about her emotional experience filming the latest season of the SBS program Who Do You Think You Are?

The Bump star, 52, broke down as she discovered a tragic secret about a family member on the ancestry series.

In a new interview ahead of her episode, which airs on Tuesday, Karvan says she was ‘unprepared’ for the tragic stories in her family history.

At one point during the episode, Karvan discovers that a long-lost relative killed himself after returning safely from the battlefields of World War I.

Describing the moment as ‘pretty full-on’, the actress burst into tears while filming the scene.

Karvan said that making the show, which explores her family history in the UK and Cyprus, and includes stories of terrible hardship, had an important message for her.

Claudia Karvan has opened up about her emotional experience filming the latest season of the SBS program Who Do You Think You Are?

The Bump star, 52, broke down as she discovered a tragic secret about a family member on the ancestry series

‘My takeaway wasn’t that the [the lives of my ancestors] were grim – it was how resilient they all were,’ she told News on Monday.

‘That’s what blew me away. I learned a lot about resilience and how constructive and industrious my ancestors were. I couldn’t have prepared myself for that.’

Karvan added that her family history contains stories of strong and independent women.

“I think I imagined that a lot more of our lives were preordained by ‘nurture,’ but now I’m more in the camp where I feel what’s reflected in my life is more ”nature”.

‘It turns out I’ve inherited a lot, which I was surprised by.’

It comes after Claudia Karvan has revealed what she really thinks about the most controversial role of her career.

The Australian actress has enjoyed a decades-long career in movies and TV – but none of her roles were as divisive as The Heartbreak Kid.

In the 1993 movie, Karvan plays a young Greek-Australian teacher called Christina who starts a controversial affair with high-school student Nick (Alex Dimitriades) after landing her first teaching job at a Melbourne school straight out of college.

In a new interview ahead of her episode, which airs on Tuesday, Karvan says she was ‘unprepared’ for the tragic stories in her family history

Reflecting back on the role, Claudia admitted viewers have given her their unfiltered opinions on the explosive storyline.

Speaking to Stellar’s Something To Talk About podcast, the veteran actress admitted she has never watched it again and said it was far from being her ‘favourite’ job of her career.

Claudia raised concerns about how the storyline has become dated and insisted she didn’t have any say in the film’s direction, but was just hired to play the leading role.

‘I had a great conversation with someone recently where they’re like, the sex didn’t bother me, and the fact that you were not Greek didn’t bother me,’ she said.

‘It was the fact that that boy was pretty much stalking you. [They] thought it’s sort of dated, which I thought was really interesting. No one had brought that up.

‘But I think, yes, some people say, we [are] over-apologising for things that are done in the past, and I just think we can’t overcompensate.

Elsewhere in the chat, she talked about her her experience shooting nude scenes.

‘So that storyline, I don’t take responsibility for. I was a 19 year old girl. And it was a tough job. I felt like I was an adult, and I was playing a very adult role.

‘But I was only 19 and away from home. And the content – there was quite a lot of intimacy and nudity.

‘I probably wasn’t that equipped to do it. I got through and I did it, but it wasn’t my favourite job.’

Her hugely successful career Down Under includes the hit comedy feature The Big Steal (1990) and the cult TV series The Secret Life of Us (2001-2003).

She later starred and produced Stan’s hit streaming series Bump from 2021 until its final season in 2024.