Ryan Prescott interview: Ryan caught in tonight's Corrie car crash

It’s been all systems go for Ryan Connor since his turbulent return to the cobbles earlier this year. Now with murderous Ronan after Ryan and his family, we spoke to Ryan Prescott to find out if he can survive Ronan’s wrath...

“It was just really good to be part of the storyline, it’s got so much juice and it’s got a lot of impact”, he said. “It’s less casual and it’s a more intense kind of vibe so I was just grateful to be involved and have a part to play in it. Doing the stunts and stuff like that, obviously I did have a stunt double, his name was Alan, very talented man, lovely guy, but I also got to do some stuff myself.”

Tonight we'll see Ryan’s worst fears are realised when he finds himself with nothing between himself or Ronan’s speeding car. “I kind of got to stand on the front of the rig and they got the car up to speed and I got to throw myself at the window screen and then fall off into the little cushioned rig that they’d built around it which was absolutely fab because I love doing stuff like that; anything that’s active, challenging, then I’m in.”

Talking about doing the car crash stunt, Ryan says: “It was great. It was also a bit scary, don’t get me wrong! Twelve miles per hour doesn’t sound very fast but when you’re on the front of the car and it’s raining and it’s slippy, and you’re like, “I can see myself going right over that window screen right there”, there’s concrete below it! You know, metal and concrete are not very forgiving materials. But it was great and they really look after you, you know. Everyone’s very, very serious about safety. We had a lot of talks before I could do anything, and yeah, you feel very well looked after in Coronation Street.”

Cormac’s death has had a serious effect on Ryan as he’s left struggling to deal with the consequences.

Ryan says: “He’s lost Cormac and being a close friend of his, they were just starting that relationship up again because they were friends from school and him coming in and he knows about his past and he knows about his dad.”

“[Ryan] was quite aware of the whole thing and I think that kind of gave him an edge of the reality behind it when things were starting to go wrong when Cormac passed. People didn’t really know the seriousness behind it so that’s why for weeks and weeks on set it was just panic and terror which can be exhausting at times but really, really fun.”

“He would just try and make sure his relationship with his mum is in tact and that’s where he draws most of his grounding and I think that’s where his foundation is and that being as stable as it is, you know, some of his deepest insecurities went to the fact that he’s not actually blood related to the place where he feels like home”, he explained to us on the importance of Ryan’s relationship with Michelle. “That kind of has an impact on all his choices and why he ends up in such terrible situations.”

We discussed the idea of Kym Marsh being a true Corrie matriarch, to which Ryan laughed, “Coming in with Kym as the head, it’s safety! It’s pure safety. No, she’s quite a maternal person as well. She just has that inside, that’s her instincts, you know. So being, kind of, under her wing so to speak as a son, you have that off set as well. She looks after everyone, so for me especially coming in to, not just a show, but a subculture that’s been going on fifty-odd years, it can be quite intimidating and Kym really took the edge off of that and she made it quite easy and quite fun and everyone does as well, you know.”

When asked if working on Coronation Street met his expectations, Ryan was quick to praise the soap. “I had an element of expectation of what to walk into but it was, if I’m honest, to a different scale in many ways simply because of, you know, the purpose built village and the amount of studios there are and the sheer size of the building and the sheer amount of people.”

“It can be a little bit intimidating but for me it’s kind of the same as anything I’m passionate about and really, really want to do. You’re getting to do what you love to do and you’re getting paid for it, make a living from it. They really look after you in Coronation Street, I felt that all the way through and it was a new start for me in a way. I’d been in London for nine years previous, you know, slogging away, grafting away as you do as an actor and then you get something like this which is a whole new city, whole new group of people.”

“You adapt to it like anything else and you find yourself being like, “oh yeah, this is why people really want to stay because it’s actually a fantastic place to work.” So I’m just grateful really, loads of gratitude for this phase of life.”

With Ryan about to face the harsh reality of what Ronan is capable of, will he get out alive? Make sure to catch tonight’s episodes to learn Ryan’s fate!

Sophie Williams

Read some more of my general natterings on Twitter @sophie_jw26

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All original work on Coronation Street Blog is covered by a Creative Commons License

Kym Marsh interview: Can Michelle protect her family?

Wherever the Connors go, high powered drama is never far behind. Once Michelle makes the decision to flee Weatherfield with Ryan and Ali, they quickly get embroiled into a high speed car chase with Ronan in hot pursuit. But when Michelle’s engine fails, the family become sitting ducks.

We sat down with Kym Marsh at Coronation Street’s recent press day to talk about Michelle, Ali, and Ryan’s escape from terrifying Ronan...

“She’s not had the best of luck, has she?” Sighed Kym, who plays Michelle Connor. She went on to joke, “Kym loves it! Kym’s happy for her to be miserable.” It was noted that doom seems to follow Michelle wherever she goes and whilst Kym joked about it, she also said, “as an actress, it’s great because I keep being tested and and I keep being given great stories to play and there’s always something new to do. Now I’m like a stunt driver! So it’s good. It sounds really strange when I say it’s good fun because it looks like it’s not but it is, we enjoy it.” 

Discussing the dramatic car chase, Kym explained to us how fun it was to film those scenes, but also how tiring it understandably was. “It was a pretty intense few days actually because we were on location for a good few days. It was a bit exhausting and there’s a lot of hanging around as well in between so it was quite tiring. For me personally my throat was just so sore by the end of it because I was just going [pretends to scream] the whole time, but it was good fun.” 

Whilst most of the exterior driving scenes were performed by stunt drivers, Kym described how it was to film her bits of driving. “obviously there was a lot of dialogue in the car so I had to do the driving to match what we were doing so you could see the car behind and all the rest of it.” She continued, “it was a bit like patting my head and rubbing my stomach at the same time, it was a bit like trying to do everything at once. I actually found it quite stressful which was quite good seeing as I was supposed to be stressed anyway. It was good because it was something new, you know I’ve been in the show nearly 13 years and so I’m still learning other things, you know. It’s the first time I’ve ever been given something like that to do and it was great, it was good fun.“

During the time Kym was driving, the stunt driver, Zarene Dallas, was crouched down in the back of the car! “That car is really small in the back. So there’s me in the front, Ryan [Prescott, who plays Ryan Connor] James [Burrows, who plays Ali Neeson] behind me and then there was a microphone so they could get everybody’s dialogue and then this lady was just like this [sits in a ball in her chair] in the back of the car, so she was sort of all cramped up in the back and now when you see it you’d never know she was there but it was so, it was just brilliant. But they were great, they were really good and made me feel quite safe but I still did find it quite stressful.”

During our interview with Kym, it was pointed out how she’s become a true Corrie matriarch. “What we know of Michelle is how fiercely loyal she is to her family, always, and she’s gone into complete protect mode”, agreed Kym. “She is the lioness of the Cubs and she’s kind of trying to protect her brood, really. I totally get that, because I would do anything for my children so you know, you would put yourself in danger for your kids, it’s totally believable.” 

With Ryan terrified for his life after Cormac’s death, Michelle decides to go and see Ronan for herself... “Maybe she shouldn’t have gone to his wake,” Kym laughed. “But again I think she’s just not thinking of that. She’s literally just going, “I want to save my son’s life” and so she’s terrified of that at the moment and she’s just like, “someone’s got to do something” and those two [Ryan and Ali] are just constantly fighting, you know, they’re at each other’s throats, they’re getting wreaths put on their car; she’s just desperate.” 

Kym was quick to praise her co-star Alan McKenna, who plays Ronan. “I really have to mention Alan actually. He was absolutely brilliant. [He is] a wonderful baddie. They were the first scenes I’d ever filmed with him, because you know we shoot a lot of things out of sequence so that was the first one for me and he was so intimidating. He’s such a lovely man, he was so intimidating.” Kym carried on to say, “I was welling up before I was meant to well up, I was like, “save it, save it!” But he genuinely was scary. But yeah, I get it, I totally get why she did it and I love the fact that we’re seeing that protective side.”

We asked Kym about Michelle’s relationship with Ryan and Ali, where Kym told us, “I love it and I love working with James and Ryan as well. I love the dynamic, I love how different they both are from each other and I love their squabbling. And we’ve also seen them be a bit silly together as well over the Whipcoin thing, which was quite amusing because we saw a little bit of, “ ooh, are they going to start being friends?”and then suddenly this happens again, and their hatred of each other rears its head.” 

Ryan and Ali have constantly been shown to have a complicated love/hate relationship, and most of that stems from both of them wanting to be Michelle’s favourite. “A lot of the angst towards each other is because of Michelle because they both want to be the most important. It is quite childish but you can kind of get why, because you know it’s an unusual situation for them to be in.”

As the Connors do everything they can to get away, who will survive the wrath of Ronan and who will be left fighting for their lives? Tune in next week to watch the action-packed episodes!

Sophie Williams

Read some more of my general natterings on Twitter @sophie_jw26

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