For most fathers, their kids are the apple of their eyes – and Doctor Doctor star Ryan Johnson is no different.
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The doting dad, 42, took to Instagram recently to pay tribute to his gorgeous eight-year-old daughter Alia with a sweet father-daughter snap.
In the photo, Alia was all smiles as the pair took a selfie at the beach.
“I love this little monkey more than anything in the world. Pre lockdown winter walk. Please bring back the beach. #doublevaxed,” Ryan, who is currently enduring Sydney’s lockdown, captioned the photo.
The Doctor Doctor star shares Alia with TV writer Tamara Asmar who he met two decades ago.
“We met in 2001 in my acting agent’s building in Sydney’s Surry Hills,” Ryan told the Sydney Morning Herald in 2017.
“Tamara was the hot chick working in the office downstairs. I’d often wander down, say hi, tell jokes and see if I could warm her up. I thought she was gorgeous with her jet-black hair and big blue eyes. I didn’t see her for a couple of years, then I was out having drinks with a friend at a pub and there was Tamara. I was besotted.”
At the time he revealed an insight to what it was like for the couple as they started their own family.
“We started trying for a baby when Tamara was 34. It took us a few years. The birth of our daughter was the happiest day of Tamara’s life. I remember seeing her snuggled up with Alia, passed out from a 20-hour labour,” he told the publication.
The acclaimed Aussie actor, who has appeared in everything from Underbelly to Love Child and House Husbands, shared a glimpse into life as a dad in 2019 when he appeared on parenting podcast The Parenting Panel.
“I think there’s before being a parent, and there’s after being a parent. When we lived in Newtown and we were surrounded by 20-somethings that were just living their best life and pushing a pram around, we quickly realised that there is just that point of difference that happens when you have child,” he divulged, adding: “I know now there’s a bit of a ‘wink club’ that goes on once you’ve had a child.”
Ryan also shared one of the greatest parenting tips he had learnt while being a dad – trying to control your reactive emotions.
“I’ve learnt not to snap. Because if I do, for example the other night my daughter punched me in the face for a laugh and I told her off,” he said.
“And then I spent the next half an hour making her feel better about punching me in the face. So if you use that voice, then they start crying.”
Instead, he said it was more productive for him to use a different tone when reacting to bad behavior as his child then “feels safe enough to listen”.
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