Hollyoaks actor Rob Norbury has revealed that his real-life friends have given him grief over some of his weepy scenes in the soap. The actor, who plays footballer Riley Costello in the show, has been faced with some very challenging storylines, including those with love cheat Mercedes and his murderous granddad, Silas. "It does affect you a little bit and you feel like, 'Flippin' eck, I feel a bit morbid', but then you see your mates and have a bit of a laugh and you're fine about it," he said. "They're usually the ones to give you a ribbing about it. I take a lot of abuse for crying on telly, but I can deal with it." Rob admitted he had found the storyline in which Riley broke up with Mercedes after discovering she had slept with his father Carl to be the toughest so far. "The relationship breaking down and it coming out about the affair and stuff was probably a bit tough," he confessed, "because obviously everyone's been in the situation where they've probably been on the end of something like that and obviously you have to use your own experiences to draw on. That was quite tough at times." However Rob insisted he and co-star Jennifer Metcalfe, who plays Mercedes, are good friends once the cameras stop rolling. "We have a laugh in between it all. She's usually messing around somewhere or half-asleep!" Rob joked. "I'm the geek one, I'll be like, 'What are we going to do about this?' And she's like, 'Don't worry about it Rob, I've got it sorted'."
