Former Home and Away actress Isabel Lucas was the envy of many Australian stars in 2017 when she landed a recurring role on US television series, MacGyver.

But after two seasons on the show, filmed in Los Angeles, Isabel quit and abruptly moved back to her hometown of Melbourne.

On Sunday, the 35-year-old explained why she chose to give up a promising career overseas to relocate Down Under from California.

Isabel told the Herald Sun that working on the show was exhausting, and often consisted of working up to 15-hours a day, six days a week.

‘You’d start at 5am and wrap around 9.30pm and six days a week. I feel exhausted just talking about it,’ she recalled.

Even on her days off, Isabel felt the pressure to use her downtime to prepare for her week ahead, learning lines and honing her accents as part of her MacGyver role as secret agent Samantha Cage.

In addition to exhausting working conditions, Isabel said she didn’t feel a strong sense of community in Hollywood and would prefer to live in Australia and travel abroad for specific projects only.

‘It’s just like being in a little fishbowl and over a long time it’s not healthy. It’s not a natural, healthy sense of community, we don’t function naturally that way.’

On her IMDB account, it shows Isabel is currently in pre-production for movie The Ogilvy Fortune – which is due to be filmed in America.

Isabel played Tasha Andrews on Home and Away between 2003 and 2006, during which time Chris Hemsworth also appeared on the show.

She shot to international stardom in 2009 after she landed a role as a robot shapeshifter disguised as a college student in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

Visiting Byron Bay regularly, she remains good friends with the Hemsworths and even comforted Liam after his split from Miley Cyrus last year.