Hollyoaks star on Nancy’s heartache: 'Her grief will become part of her story'

nancy hollyoaks

Fiance Kyle has tragically taken his own life

Hollyoaks actress Jessica Fox has opened up about the dark times ahead for her character Nancy Osborne following the suicide of fiancé Kyle Kelly.

In Tuesday’s E4 ‘first look’ episode – which will be shown on C4 on Monday 15th June - Nancy had a visit from the police and ex husband Darren, who made the grim announcement that Kyle had taken his own life.

Teacher Nancy was unaware that her partner had been battling depression, and had just had a romantic dinner with him at The Hutch, having previously split up with Kyle when he was stoned at the wheel with her young son Oscar in tow, and crashed the car.

She was horrified when Darren – who is also suffering from depression – revealed the truth about his pal’s mental health problems, and explained that Kyle had previously attempted to take his own life as a teenager.

Kyle (Adam Rickitt) was suffering from depression and confided in Darren (Ashley Taylor Dawson)

Kyle (Adam Rickitt) was suffering from depression and confided in Darren (Ashley Taylor Dawson)

Says Fox: “All those arguments, all those times when Kyle didn’t show up or he disappeared, or his actions didn’t make sense and she said nasty things and didn’t have the patience to ask him why he was behaving that way - all those conversations are going to be forever in her brain and she’ll be wondering whether, if she’d handled things differently, she wouldn’t have lost the man she was going to marry.

“When she said to him: ‘I sometimes think we’d be better off without you’, I think that will echo in her brain, probably for the rest of her life.”

The 37 year old star adds that Nancy’s grief will be a long-term story that plays out well into the end of 2020.

"We’re playing out what happens to all the people that are left behind, which I think is really important,” reveals Fox.

“Nancy finds it incredibly difficult, and has to find strength to look after the people that still need her and rely on her. She has to find a way to put one foot in front of the other and make sense of this new world that she lives in.

“We will be playing out the initial grief, but this will be something that Nancy carries with her for a long time and well into the end of the year. What we’re showing is that grief doesn’t go away. It changes shape but it doesn’t go away, and that will become part of her story.”

 

Alison Slade
Soaps Editor
Alison Slade has over 20 years of experience as a TV journalist and has spent the vast majority of that time as Soap Editor of TV Times magazine.  She is passionate about the ability of soaps to change the world by presenting important, issue-based stories about real people in a relatable way. There are few soap actors that she hasn’t interviewed over the years, and her expertise in the genre means she has been called upon as a judge numerous times for The British Soap Awards and the BAFTA TV Awards.

When she is not writing about soaps, watching soaps, or interviewing people who are in soaps, she loves going to the theatre, taking a long walk or pottering about at home, obsessing over Farrow and Ball paint.