Emmerdale's Caleb Miligan actor Will Ash has revealed what led to him accepting the role, as he detailed his long-time friendship with one of his new co-stars.
While Will has worked with many of the Emmerdale cast before, including Lisa Riley and Lucy Pargeter, Will confirmed he has known another soap favourite since his school days.
Speaking to The Mirror and other press about his soap debut, he was joined by Cain Dingle actor Jeff Hordley.
Will revealed he had known Jeff for years, so when he learned there was the opportunity to film alongside him he jumped at the chance.
On what sold the role to him, he spilled: "There were three things. The first thing was probably how complex he is, how kind of layered he is because he comes in having this quite dark backstory having been put into care as a child.
"So when he was like 15, 14, he finds Cain and tries to reconnect with his family and he’s told by Cain that his mum is dead, so to steer clear of the family basically.
"So he spends the rest of his time growing up in care so he comes into it, when he finds out Faith wasn't dead, with a lot of bitterness, and a lot of anger so that complexity and having an axe to grind with Cain.
"Also, I knew coming in to it that I'd be working a lot with Jeff who I have known for a long time, so that was a massive draw.
"Not to put anything down but it's work isn't it. It's nice to be working. The main thing was working with Jeff and the character cos the scripts have been amazing."
On how they first met and how long they've known each other, Jeff revealed: "It goes back to our school days. We did a play at school and then other stuff professionally, but we both went to the same school in Oldham, and had a really inspirational drama teacher.
"I'm a lot older [than Will], I'm like a school generation above. We did Another Country and I was one of the sixth formers and [Will was] like one of the kids, it was a good production that."
Will continued: "For me when I was that age coming in and seeing all these lads in that play, taking it really seriously and taking acting really seriously, I'd never seen that before.
"So it was one of the reasons why I did it as a profession as it was quite inspiring."
On learning Will had joined the soap, Jeff added: "When I found out it was Will I was like oh this is great. It feels like Caleb has been here for a long time, the character is written so well."
Emmerdale airs weeknights at 7:30pm on ITV1 and ITVX, with an hour-long episode on Thursdays.
