With the firm belief that Phelan’s body is at the bottom of
the sea, Eileen and Nicola are ready to start afresh, especially now with the
arrival of baby Zack. However, their biggest fears are realised when Phelan
arrives on their doorstep brandishing his gun...
Both Eileen and Nicola are starting to settle back into
normality, both women blissfully unaware that Pat is in fact back on the
street. “As far as I’m concerned, I’ve killed him. He’s in the sea in
Whitehaven,” said Sue Cleaver (Eileen). “So I think he’s dead, so I’m just
trying to get my life back on track and move forward with it.”
“Yes, same with Nicola,” said Nicola Thorp (Nicola). “She’s
just had a baby, life’s perfect as far as she’s concerned. She’s asked Eileen
to be the Granny to little baby Zack, so yeah, she thinks everything’s going
swimmingly after a really traumatic birth. What else could go wrong?”
What else indeed, and the trouble of course does not stop
there. Phelan takes on Seb, Nicola, and Eileen to get to baby Zack and will do
anything to get to his grandson. When talking about the dramatic scenes, Sue
said, “It can be very intense, and it’s very physical as well. Obviously, as an
actor, we love doing that.” About relieving the tension after filming such
scenes, Nicola said, “It can be quite tense, especially if you’re in one room
and there’s that many of you for a long time.”
While Eileen was certain that she had gotten rid of her
murderous husband for good, there have been a few moments where Eileen has let
her mind wonder whether he would turn up again one day. “A lot of strange
things have been happening to her. She even has that phone call where she hears
his voice and she wonders if he’s dead. But then the police explain how that
could have happened, and she’s reassured by it.”
“Nicola has a couple of moments,” Nicola says. “There are a
couple of scenes where we say to each other, ‘they never found the body’, and
then we go, ‘no, don’t be ridiculous.’ But when you don’t find the body, there
is always that question in the back of their minds of, ‘what if?’ But then when
he does arrive, it’s like, ‘oh god, no way.’”
When Eileen comes face to face with
Phelan again, he’s not hesitant to let his wife know that he never felt
anything real for her. “Phelan loves you until you turn against him, and then
that’s it,” Sue told us. “To be honest, I don’t think in that moment, it didn’t
register with me what he was saying. I was more concerned about Zack and
Nicola."
Nicola said, “I do remember reading it thinking, ‘is that
hurting me as a reader more than maybe her as a character?’ As an audience you
go, ‘that’s so hurtful.’”
Despite the dark drama that’s taking over the street this
week, it’s great to see that the episodes have a surprising amount of humour in
them, the balance is perfect. Nicola told us she was surprised by how funny the
episodes were, and carried on to say, “I just thought that maybe this week
wouldn’t have those elements in it, you know, because of the drama. But what
they’ve managed to weave so well together is the comedy. I mean, Gail always
has something funny to say after something tragic or dramatic, and I live for
those moments.”
Nicola and Sue were absolutely lovely to sit down with and
talk about what’s coming up for Eileen and Nicola. Tune in tonight and
tomorrow to find out how they deal with the arrival of Phelan!
Sophie Williams
Read some more of my general natterings on Twitter @sophie_jw26.
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