Corrie producers went to great lengths to keep the Andy Carver hostage storyline secret from the press and public
Coronation Street star Oliver Farnworth says he was smuggled on to set under blankets to avoid revealing his character Andy Carver was alive.
Viewers believed that Pat Phelan, played by Connor McIntyre, had killed the waiter but it was revealed on Friday that the builder had been holding him hostage in a basement since January.
Oliver said keeping the plot twist a surprise meant being sworn to secrecy for months.
He told ITV’s This Morning: “It’s a secret I’ve had to keep for pretty much the last eight months.
“So I left in January and in that time I had a meeting with Kate Oates our producer and she had a little idea that I might not be dead, but needed to gauge if I was interested and I obviously jumped at the chance and said absolutely.
“Because I’ve been growing my beard and growing my hair and kind of looking a bit dishevelled on the street people have been coming up to me and going ‘Oh you’re not in Corrie any more, any auditions?’”
He continued: “I think they left it quite ambiguous. A lot of people thought I was rolled up in the carpet, but that was him disposing of the carpet because it had my blood and DNA and things on it. But you never saw a body and that is something that has baffled quite a lot of people.”
Oliver said the production went to great lengths to avoid spoilers coming out.
He said: “Where the basement is is quite a safe place to film, but when we are outside the house that is a public street so we have been having some ingenious ways of getting me to set, sneaking me in.
“I go halfway in my own blacked out car like some sort of diva and then switch with our production manager Andy. who has got a Corrie coat on and baseball cap.
“He gets in the car, I get in the back of a knackered old Land Rover with a load of blankets on my head and we arrive at the same time because there is always paparazzi, they always seem to know where we are filming before we do.”
ITV has announced that Monday’s episode will see Carver make a bid for freedom equipped with a rope as a weapon.
