INTERVIEW: Mikey North- Gary saves Sarah's life in world's first socially distanced stunt

Gary Windass has been strutting around like Coronation Street's alpha male for far too long now, but it's not going to stay that way for much longer. Sitting down with Mikey North via the magic of Zoom, he revealed how the net is quickly closing in on a worried Gary.

It all starts when Brian finds Rick Neelan's watch in the woods when metal detecting. "He finds out from Brian of all people that they've been to the woods with their metal detectors", says Mikey.  "Bernie's found a watch, Bernie sells it to Sarah, [Gary] finds out and he has a bit of a meltdown in the street and smashes up Brian's metal detector in one of his true Windass episodes."

Gary is horrified when Rick's watch is discovered... and then sold to Sarah.

With their highly fractious relationship, Sarah is probably the worst person to be in possession of Rick's watch, and this sparks worry within Gary. Mikey said: "Sarah kind of starts to put things together. Adam's obviously been after him for a while as well; the net's closing in. Sarah will approach Gary and sort of ask him straight, "did you do it?""

We've seen Gary become over-confident, but that is set to the change. "I think Gary's been really confident, Mikey less so", Mikey laughed. "I think he's felt invincible at times and his split personality comes out and he thinks that nothing can get to him, really. But that's now going to catch up with him and his luck might be running out.

Sarah finds Gary's murdering tools

After finding Gary's murder kit in the back of his van, Sarah begins to add all of the evidence together and after a heated confrontation with Gary on the cobbles, she runs into the road and is about to be hit by an oncoming car when Gary pushes her out of the way, resulting in him being hit instead. The question is, why did Gary save Sarah when she could have taken his secret to the grave? The answer is simple.

"He still loves her, doesn't he?" said Mikey. "I think he probably always will. Everything he did with Rick, you know and Rana of course with all the roof stuff, was all to sort of help them out and save her and protect her. I guess he feels hard done by that he's had to do all this and she's off with someone else and doesn't like that.

Gary saves Sarah's life- but at what cost?

"Don't get me wrong, he does love Maria, you know, she's been so nice to him and kind, and he does love her, he really does, but the stuff with Sarah will always be bubbling under and this obviously brings it all to a head."

Coronation Street is dubbing this crash the world's first socially distanced stunt, and Mikey talked about filming his own stunt involving a car going at full speed.

"I always ask to try and do my own stunts if I can, it's just I enjoy it; it's one of the best parts of the job for me so luckily they let me do it on the bonnet of the car. It's good fun and I really enjoy it, getting bashed about.

"This stunt guy showed me what to do and it was quite wet on the bonnet actually and I thought, 'I'm going to lose my grip and probably get hit by car', but luckily I got away with it somehow, but yeah, it was pretty nerve-wracking, the first take."

Mikey North filmed his own stunt

Due to social distancing precautions, the process of filming had to be altered slightly. In order for Gary to be able to push Sarah out of the way of the vehicle, a dummy wearing Sarah's clothes had to take Tina O'Brien's place at times.

Mikey said: "We're having to shoot things quite differently. There's more camera trickery to make us look closer than we are. In the stunt, it was just me acting with a dummy Sarah at times. Its not easy but we've done as best we can."

A dummy version of Sarah had to be used due to social distancing precautions

With every soap villain, their time on our screens is almost always put on a timer as soon as they commit that first murder. However, Mikey hopes that Gary's redeemable qualities will mean he can stick around. "I hope that the bad things that he has done at the start were all with good intentions at heart, you know, he was trying to help his family out through his desperation.

"I know there's been times over the last year probably where he has gone a little bit too far and that is in his nature as well, that nasty streak within him. But I do hope there is that good guy somewhere. Hopefully we can get past this, maybe bring good guy Gary back at some point.

"I hope there is a way out of this for him."

Obviously, Coronation Street has had an extensive break from filming due to lockdown, and Mikey found he was quite nervous to return to work. "It was quite nerve-wracking getting back to work actually because obviously none of us have picked up a script for three months which is quite rare as an actor that you go that long so it was like learning to do it all over again.

"I've loved it, being back. It's so nice to get back and see everyone and just be working again. We're so fortunate being in a soap at the minute that we're working because nowhere else is and you've got so many actors that would love to be working right now."

Filming a socially distanced stunt can't be easy, and Mikey explained what is was like: "It's not how you want to do it. I mean, when you're trying to act with a dummy version of Tina O'Brien, it's not as good as the real thing. But we're getting used to it now, trying to keep the distance is not easy... but we're doing our best and as I say, it's just nice to be back and getting the opportunity to work again and hopefully we'll be back to normal soon."

With Gary's net quickly closing in on him, how much does he reveal to Sarah and will she keep his dark secrets? Don't miss this action-packed episode on Wednesday 29th July!

Sophie Williams

Read some more of my general natterings on Twitter soph_journo.

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