Yael Stone turned her back on Hollywood. Jack Manning Bancroft ...

A little boy, sporting a long rat's tail and channelling his best Bart Simpson, hurls an egg across the primary school playground. It smashes into a girl who, unbeknownst to him, has a terrible egg allergy. Immediately, a welt appears.

The first brush between Jack Manning Bancroft and Yael Stone hardly reads like the beginnings of a friendship, let alone a love story.

"If you had told five-year-old Yael she would one day have two children with Jack, my little head would have exploded," Yael tells Australian Story.

But reality has a wonderful imagination.

When Yael and Jack first met as five-year-olds, they had no idea they'd fall in love 25 years later. (Supplied: Yael Stone/Jack Manning Bancroft)

Jack and Yael grew up in two very different worlds — he founded Indigenous mentoring program AIME to try to alleviate inequality, she garnered international fame acting in Netflix hit Orange Is the New Black — until a chance encounter brought them together on a shared mission.

They're trying to change the world, but doing the right thing is rarely the easy thing. Jack's ambition landed him in hospital; Yael turned her back on Hollywood.

"I'm sure there are people who look at my decisions and think they're a little unhinged in terms of totally self-sabotaging my career," Yael says.

"I think a lot of people be like, 'This lady is cuckoo.' But you have to make the choices you can live with."

Yael Stone shot to fame playing the red-lipped, heart-sick female inmate Lorna Morello. (Supplied: Instagram @yaelstone)

A global vision

There are some surprising threads connecting Jack and Yael. His father Ned was her high school drama teacher; her brother Jake was in the band Bluejuice, along with Jack's cousin. Still, they hadn't seen each other in "a bazillion years" when they bumped into each other at a theatre in Sydney in 2016.

Jack, a Bundjalung man, had grown AIME into one of Australia's most successful non-profit organisations and he had a bold vision to launch it on a global scale.

"This was a chance for us to be able to do a quantum level of impact, beyond what we'd done in the first decade," he says.

But the sell wasn't going to be easy, especially in the US.

"A lot of Indigenous people are invisible in Australia, let alone in America. Very few people even know about Aboriginal people over there."

Yael was at the height of her fame, and Jack saw an opportunity to harness her star power to lift the visibility of his work.

"When Jack has a vision for something and you happen to be included in that, best of luck not being inspired to join in," Yael says.

Yael Stone would often lend her star power to AIME events, like this one in New York City in 2016. (Supplied: Yael Stone)

The socially conscious part of Yael was already blossoming; while in New York she spent several years teaching yoga and meditation to women in jail on Rikers Island.

"It was feeding something in me that I did not realise how hungry I was for," she says.

She was happy to help Jack "fill the room" at AIME's global launch event, but she baulked at the offer to sing a duet with him. "I'm not a singer, so I won't be singing," she insisted — but Jack had a quick comeback.

"I said, 'Do you want to say no to disadvantaged kids around the world?'" he laughs. "And then you said, 'OK, maybe I'll sing.'"

From little things big things grow

Jack and Yael are a private couple. They sometimes hesitate before answering a question, straddling the line between sharing enough and sharing too much. They trade a shy giggle when asked about falling in love.

While there were initially "no vibes" between the pair, something shifted as they sat in Central Park, rehearsing their duet — Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody's protest anthem From Little Things Big Things Grow.

They had fun together, felt safe together — and moved in together after six weeks.

"We came together around ideas. I've never felt like an idea was too big with Yael. That's probably the magic that unites us as a couple," Jack says.

Jack and Yael have been described as "incredibly dynamic, creative, big-picture people". (Australian Story: Tom Hancock)

The 'death' of AIME mentoring

Jack "wanted to live an extraordinary life", and for a while that bravado kept him running. But the global launch of AIME was proving slow and he was still getting "laughed out of rooms" in the US.

He decided to leverage American ambition, offering people the chance to win a spot on a chartered plane to Australia to be part of a new mentoring festival.

"He puts himself on the line every time and with full belief. There's nothing he's saving for himself, which is beautiful, and hard to watch too," Yael says.

But Jack was dead on his feet. He collapsed in the early hours of the festival and was taken to hospital. Yael had to pack up their life in New York and rush home.

"After that experience, I got dark. I let this depressive wave stop me," Jack says.

Jack has taken AIME completely off social media, which he describes as "some of the most dangerous networks we've inherited". (Australian Story: Simon Koladin)

'Starting with loving myself'

The couple and their daughter, who was born a year earlier, retreated to their Australian base in the northern Illawarra. The slower rhythms of coastal life, and their connection to Dharawal Country, proved deeply healing.

"It was the most hopeless and downbeat I'd ever seen him," Yael says. "Eventually he decided on hope. In a way, it was much more powerful because he chose it."

Jack was in a dark place after AIME's global festival of mentoring imploded. (Instagram: @yaelstone)

Jack says Yael has given him strength in "simple and profound" ways.

"I remember her saying, 'You don't have to obliterate yourself to move people,'" he says.

She adds, gently: "You were very mean to yourself as well."

Jack nods. "I had the self-hate talk of 'you're not good enough'. Yael taught me a different vocabulary, where I don't have to motivate myself out of pain. It can start with loving myself."

Away from Hollywood, Yael lives a very different life with Jack and their two children. (Australian Story: Winsome Denyer)

Turning her back on Hollywood

As much as Yael has been there for Jack, he has been there for her.

In 2017, the Daily Telegraph newspaper published allegations of inappropriate behaviour by actor Geoffrey Rush. The Academy Award winner then sued the publication and was subsequently cleared of those allegations in 2019, winning a massive defamation payout.

Yael gave up her US green card to return to Australia to make a big career shift. (Supplied: Yael Stone)

Watching the case unfold, Yael felt compelled to speak out about her own experiences. In late 2018, she made her own explosive claims about actor Geoffrey Rush, who she had co-starred with in the stage play Diary of a Madman eight years earlier. Rush denied the claims, saying at the time: "The allegations of inappropriate behaviour made by Yael Stone are incorrect. I sincerely and deeply regret if I have caused her any distress."

She explained her decision to come forward was difficult. "There was a lot at stake, beyond my career. Some really important friendships have been destroyed," Yael says.

"I just felt like it was an important thing to be present for and that, if one day our daughters asked me why I did what I did, I would be able to say, 'I didn't want to leave somebody standing alone.'"

Then in 2019, her long-awaited green card arrived. It was a passport to opportunity in the US that "meant a whole new future for me as an actor".

Orange Is the New Black cast takes out the Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series award at the 2017 Emmys. (Getty Images: David Crotty/Patrick McMullan)

The plan was for the family of three to live between the US and Australia, with Yael capitalising on her success from Orange Is the New Black. But just months later, as bushfires ravaged Australia over Black Summer, it no longer seemed ethical to set up a life in two countries.

"The carbon emissions alone are not right," she explained, publicly vowing to give up her green card as a "personal sacrifice" in the "climate war".

"That was a really big watershed moment where I couldn't follow the plan," she says.

"I felt like I was being a petulant child, making a phone call to big fancy agents being like, 'I think I want to work on climate change action in Australia.'"

Making the transition

After three years of searching for the best way to dedicate her time, Yael founded Hi Neighbour in 2023. The not-for-profit group provides opportunities for locals, including steel and coal workers, to train in renewables.

"These people have the skills and the know-how to make this transition happen, so they're actually the heroes of this moment. We should be empowering those people to make that change," she says.

Yael started Hi Neighbour to fund scholarships for people wanting to upskill for a career in renewable energy. (Australian Story: Winsome Denyer)

She draws inspiration from Jack, and AIME's ethos of building bridges between people. But there are moments she questions her choices.

"It is hard sometimes. I love acting, and I've made some decisions that have challenged that," says Yael, who still takes on roles in Australia.

"But I don't think I could live with myself if I did it any other way."

Yael presents to a crowd at a Hi Neighbour event. (Australian Story: Winsome Denyer)

'I want to be a part of the solutions here on Earth'

Jack has signed a death warrant for AIME, announcing it will cease to exist by 2033, when it will "pass on the notes" so future generations can carry the work forward.

"We started AIME to alleviate inequity and focused on education as the lever," he says. But over time he has realised that "you're not going to solve inequity if you stick in one box".

So Jack has expanded his vision "from saying, 'We need Indigenous solutions for Indigenous people,' to saying, 'Hey, do you reckon we can have a crack at every idea on Earth?'"

Earlier this year, he launched Imagi-NATION, a "global social relational network" that aims to create unlikely connections between people "inside and outside the margins" to find innovative solutions to the world's problems.

"Instead of trying to get 5,000 people to go to Mars, I want to be a part of the solutions here on Earth," he says.

Yael has encouraged Jack to push the boundaries of his creativity, which perhaps partly explains the puppets.

Working with a troupe of puppets, Jack says, helps people sidestep their differences and explore serious ideas in a playful and productive way.

"Puppetry lifts you from race, from nation-states, from borders, to ideas. Then we've got a ball game. Then we can really move," he explains.

Jack drew inspiration for his troupe of puppets, led by Professor Hope, from Sesame Street. (Supplied: Benjamin Knight/AIME)

He admits it was "probably the place where everyone thought I'd lost my mind" — but he has a different idea of what makes someone crazy.

"Our financial system, based on a bunch of ones and zeros that have no relation to anything to do with nature, is crazy. Dressing up in some penguin suit every day and holding a briefcase and never smiling for 30 years, that's crazy," he says.

"The puppets are the least crazy thing."

A shared mission

At home in the northern Illawarra, Jack and Yael are enjoying "a deeply domestic time of our lives".

They've struck a balance between the serious and the silly: Yael says while they "care about big things, probably the core of our relationship is primary school humour".

They have taken their daughters, Pemau and Marli, to see the playground at Balmain primary school, scene of the egg incident of the early 1990s.

"It's strange when you explain it to little kids. 'Hey, we met when we were five!' They're like, 'eeew!'" Jack says.

Yael and Jack take time out for family in their Illawarra home. (Australian Story: Winsome Denyer)

Jack and Yael are starting to think about what the next adventure might look like. Whatever happens, the unconventional couple has each other's backs.

"Jack and I are really different people and we have different ways of walking in the world but we are on this shared mission," Yael says.

"It can be a bit lonely and you can feel like you don't make a lot of sense but when you've got somebody else walking it with you, it's incredibly powerful."

Yael says she shifted course because she wanted to "embody the change she would like to see world leaders take". (Australian Story: Winsome Denyer)

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