Ex-Emmerdale star Matt can't escape soap past

Ex-Emmerdale star Matt can't escape soap past
Ex-Emmerdale star Matt can't escape soap past (Image credit: PA Archive/Press Association Images)

Former Emmerdale star Matt Healy has revealed his screen alter-ego Matthew King is still a fixture in his life three years after he left the show. Speaking to Inside Soap, the actor said, "Someone mentions Matthew at some point every day.I really don't mind, as it means I must have been doing something right if they still want to talk to me about him. "Emmerdale fans are very loyal - they'll still come and see me in whatever I'm doing." Since leaving the show Matt has appeared alongside fellow Emmerdale star Christopher Villiers - who played Grayson Sinclair - in the play Inside Job, and is currently starring alongside Roxanne Pallett in another stage production, Satin n'Steel. However he said he has no regrets about the character's demise. It was actually my idea," he admitted. "I wanted to move on, and didn't want to have the constant thought in the back of my mind that I could return. Also, I really thought they'd done everything they could with him. "Once the idea of the Kings going bankrupt was brought up, I knew that was it for Matthew. There is no way he could ever have coped with being poor!"

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.