Hollyoaks star Jennifer Metcalfe has reflected on the moment she found out that Mercedes McQueen, a character she’s played for almost two decades, would be diagnosed with cancer.
Mercedes, a longtime favourite with fans of the Channel 4 soap, was revealed to have bowel cancer during the premiere episode of the show’s new era, which dived one year into the future.
Hollyoaks has worked closely with charity Bowel Cancer UK on the storyline, which show bosses hope will encourage conversations about the illness which is the fourth most-common cancer in the UK.
Mercedes’ diagnosis certainly came as a shock to fans, who expected the character’s new storyline to be similar to her past ones.
But it wasn’t just audiences that were left reeling, as series star Jennifer revealed that she too was taken aback when she first found out about what was to come for her signature character.
‘Over the years – and it has been nearly 20 years now – you get told these storylines and a lot of it can be repetitive,’ she told Metro.co.uk. ‘But this is a different version – a different producer’s vision of it – and it does come across very different.
‘When Hannah [Cheers, Hollyoaks’ Executive Producer] first told me, I was just speechless and thought, “Okay, I don’t know what’s going to happen here! I don’t know how I’m going to tackle it.”
‘But I was like “Thank you for trusting me with such a storyline. I’m really excited about it.”
‘I trusted that when the scripts came through, because they’re always incredible, that would help – and it absolutely did. I think once you see the prosthetics and what they have to do to you, and you get these amazing scripts, I had to bring very little to the table. Just a bit of raw emotion.
‘I’m not Method at all. I’m not one of those actors that’ve been trained to tap into different things. “I need to do this to be happy, I need to do this to be sad, give me a minute and I’ll get there.” But with this one, it was full-on Method acting. I was like, “I didn’t even know I had this in me.”
‘I went into a totally different zone I’ve never been in before and I enjoyed being in. It was very draining and really rewarding. At the end of the day I was just sat at home going, “I don’t know what I just did. It could be the worst thing that television’s ever seen or one of the best things. I just don’t know.” I hope what I felt came across.’
Jen has a personal connection to the storyline in question, revealing that her own dad died of bowel cancer when she was just 15.
‘There is real raw trauma there for me that I’ve probably never dealt with,’ she said. ‘So I thought: “Let’s see what happens when I get in this room.” I trusted that whatever was going to happen once I got in there would happen. I hope it raises awareness that we want it to.”
The soap star branded some of the upcoming scenes ‘powerful’, and having seen them myself, I couldn’t agree more. Jen is a powerhouse.
The coming episodes will see Mercedes feeling positive about her chemo results but as for what the doctors tell her remains to be seen.
Discussing her thoughts on the story – and the timing of it – Jennifer added: ‘It’s been the best time and honestly I’m so thankful that they’ve given me it. I’ve got so much out of it personally and professionally. For the show and character that I care so much about.’
Hollyoaks streams Mondays to Wednesdays from 7am on Channel 4’s streaming platform, or catch episodes on TV at 7pm on E4.
