Emmerdale's newest recruit Darcy Gray was "selling dog food" before he joined the ITV soap.
Darcy will appear on ITV viewers' screens from the first time next week as Marcus, who is the son of evil villain Pierce, and the actor who plays him has revealed what he was doing before he secured the role.
In next week's episodes, Pierce's ex Rhona is stunned when the evil villain sends her a letter from jail, asking for her help to find his son as he is dying and wants to be reunited with him before his time comes.
Rhona offers to help but after finding Marcus, things are only set to get worse for everyone involved.
Speaking to The Mirror and other press about his previous job, Darcy explains: "I was just selling posh dog food.
"The company themselves employ only actors because we somehow know how to talk to people and coerce people into buying this dog food. It was something I did which really did save me after drama school. It meant that whilst I was auditioning, I was able to earn some money but still have time to audition."
Darcy has "always wanted to be an actor" - but he admits he didn't always have the confidence to do it.
"It took me quite a long time to hunker down and get into drama school, which of course I eventually did, and then Covid hit," he explained, "I was just kind of out of work, auditioning, doing lots of tapes and then much to my luck, Emmerdale came along."
Describing his new job as a "very pinch me moment", he added: "I don't think it's even sunk in now to be honest, you feel lucky to be part of an ensemble. I was dying to do something to work in and around a group of people."
He was so excited to have bagged the role and instantly called up his "excited" mum.
"I was in an undisclosed health shop in Angel, Islington and my agent gave me a buzz and she said you've got it," he shared.
"You don't often hear you've booked the job. The first thing I did was quit my day job straight away and then told my mum, so that was the first two things I did. My mum loved it. She's always so pumped and excited and every single time I get an audition, and there's a call back, she's always asking me how did it go, how did it go.
"I've always had to let her down because you do so many of these auditions so it was good to finally say, I did it, I got it."
