A host of film actors have had a stint in soapland, including Oscar-nominated star Lesley Manville, who recently reminisced on her time on Emmerdale.
The Phantom Thread actor starred on the soap back when it was still called Emmerdale Farm, played the role of Rosemary Kendall.
Manville only appeared in the Yorkshire soap for a short period — between February 1975 and April 1976 — but she definitely still remembers driving her co-stars “mad” as an eager 16-year-old actor.
“Well, apparently, I was quite bossy,” the Magpie Murders protagonist said on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
“Even with the established, seasoned actors I was working with,” she continued, explaining she would give them pointers “thinking I was being helpful”.
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“‘Oh, you know, when you did that bit, you are not meant to stand there, you are meant to stand over there,'” she would say, adding that it “drove them mad”.
The star, who’s currently on Broadway in Oedipus after a successful West End run alongside Mark Strong, admitted she hasn’t changed dramatically since her Emmerdale Farm days.
“I suppose I’m still a bit like that although I’ve learned when to keep my mouth shut,” she said.
Manville also starred in the theatre adaptation of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, penned by Christopher Hampton and directed by Marianne Elliott.
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She starred opposite Rivals’ Aidan Turner in a run at London’s National Theatre, with the play set to hit the big screen next summer as part of the NT Live series.
A synopsis reads: “Marquise de Merteuil is a master in the art of survival. Alongside the magnetic Vicomte de Valmont, they turn seduction into strategy and weaponise desire.
“But when their alliance collapses into rivalry, the battle between them threatens to destroy everyone in their path.”
As part of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Manville previously appeared in a stage adaptation of the same epistolary novelby Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. She also played Geneviève de Merteuil in Dangerous Liaisons, a 2022 TV series loosely based on the book.
Emmerdale airs on weeknights at 7.30pm on ITV1, and streams on ITVX.