Dan Brocklebank has a very personal connection to Motor Neurone Disease as Coronation Street tackle the topic in a new storyline.
The actor - who stars as Billy Mayhew on the ITV soap - will be left stunned when his partner Paul Foreman (Peter Ash) is diagnosed with MND. Whilst he doesn't initially find out, as Paul keeps it between him and Dee Dee, all is soon revealed about his health and what it might mean for the future of the pair's relationship as they come to terms with the diagnosis.
Dan knows all too well about how MND can affect a person's loved ones, after his grandfather was diagnosed with MND two decades ago. He describes the storyline as something very "close to his heart".
Speaking to The Mirror and other press, Dan revealed: "20 years ago, my grandfather was diagnosed with MND and subsequently died from it. This is a subject that I've lived through in my own life, as have the rest of my family.
"Because I've been working with the MND Association for so long, I've met a lot of people that have been living with MND so it's a subject that's really close to my heart. I've been helping to fundraise with them for many years and when I first got the phone call, they had no idea of my history with MND or with the association, so it was a bit of a shock."
Dan was out on a walk when he got a call about the storyline, and he admits it made his legs "a little weak".
"I'm not going to lie, my legs went a little bit weak because I suppose it just brings back memories of that time and I did wonder. I did think this could potentially be quite triggering in a lot of ways," he explained.
"Billy's knowledge of MND is very different to my knowledge of MND but I am hoping I might be able to bring some of my personal experiences into the playing of this storyline."
Dan admits the "pressure" is slightly off because he knows all about MND, but he worries he may "burst into tears".
"This is Billy's journey and not mine, so the only pressure for me will be to see how triggering I think it's going to be. I won't have any trouble accessing emotion to play it. Billy's quite an emotional character anyway," he explained to us.
"We want to portray it with as much realism as we can and I don't think that's going to be any problem for me, because I'm stepping into something I need to do no research on. In some ways, it actually takes the pressure off because I know I'm portraying something I have lived through. I think the only pressure will be trying not to burst into tears."
