The Scottish actor at the heart of Coronation Street ’s stalking and acid attack storyline has revealed fans are scared of him in real life.
Andrew Still’s chilling portrayal of the deranged and vengeful delivery driver Justin Rutherford has made him one of Weatherfield’s most talked-about villains.
Justin has preyed on Rovers barmaid Daisy Midgeley after a chance meeting, making her life hell. When she spurned his advances, he tried to take revenge by disfiguring her with acid on her wedding day, only for it to tear through her brave friend Ryan Connor, who took the full force of the burning liquid.
Ahead of TV’s latest soap trial, which begins on Thursday, Glaswegian -born Andrew said he’s had a lot of reaction for his character.
He said: “I’ve had a fair few people come up to me in pubs and they are like, ‘Are you the boy off Coronation Street?’ and asking for a photo.
“Everyone has been really nice and they know it’s not real life but I did have one guy come up to me and he was like, ‘You’re really scary!’ He did actually seem a wee bit scared of me! I was like, ‘Honestly mate, that’s not who I am!’”
It’s not the first bad boy Andrew, 29, has played. In Hollyoaks his character Joel Dexter was a drug dealer with a short temper while in Waterloo Road he played troubled teen Scott Fairchild.
Andrew said: “It’s always fun to play a bad guy.
“I do usually play troubled characters and Justin is definitely troubled. I have had to try to find the truth and the realism in him – otherwise it just comes across as an inauthentic villain.
“I know this sounds crazy but, as an actor, you have to try to find that sympathy in the character and relate to them on a human level.
“So I thought about his mum passing away, his isolation and loneliness and the fact he doesn’t have anyone and that he’s latched on to Daisy due to a really tenuous connection that he feels is something more in his head.
“I’ve just had to try to play that all believably and make it all feel real.”
Andrew’s storylines began in December last year when Justin met Daisy in hospital. She was there to
check a lump on her breast while Justin was visiting his mum, who was being treated for cancer.
Justin became fixated with big-hearted Daisy after she said some kind words and he began sending her flowers, showing up at her work and even broke into her home.
After rejecting his advances, things turned even darker, with him planning to disfigure her with acid so no one else would want her. Justin wanted to do it on her wedding day to make it even worse.
But the acid ended up hitting her friend Ryan, played by Ryan Prescott, who has been left unable to cope with his facial disfigurement.
In March, Princess Anne visited the Corrie set in Manchester as patron of the Acid Survivors Trust International, which had been advising the producers and writers on the storyline.
For Andrew, this was his most memorable moment of being at Corrie since his character arrived on the
cobbles.
He said: “When else are you going to have the chance to say that you’ve met a royal in the Rovers Return? It’s pretty mad. That’s a ‘tell your grandkids’ type of thing.
“She took a great interest in the acid attack storyline so I got a chance to talk to her, which I hadn’t really expected.
“She was very knowledgeable and knew what was going on in the storyline.”
While he’s the baddie and is about to go on trial for the acid attack, Andrew is adamant Justin should
get his comeuppance.
He said: “When I have been a viewer of a show and watched a character do terrible things, I can’t help but hope that it’s going to come back to bite them and I think Justin certainly deserves justice to be served because what he has done has been horrendous. I definitely think he should get his comeuppance.”
This week’s court scenes were filmed on location in Bolton over the course of a week – in the same court they used in Happy Valley.
He said: “Obviously, because Justin is on trial, he is inside a big glass case defendant box in the court.
“It was the court that they used when they filmed Happy Valley, so the defendant box is the one that James Norton’s character, Tommy Lee Royce, climbed out of.
“There’s so much history in that court too, like there are old Victorian cells underneath the court so I was going straight from there up into the box, which was weird.” Given what he’s done to the Corrie residents, it’s no wonder Ryan is petrified of turning up at court – and doesn’t show up.
Stirred up by Justin’s sister Karen (Lynn Kennedy) in the Rovers in tomorrow night’s episode, Daisy is also thinking of doing a runner before getting into the witness box.
All eyes will be on Justin this week and Andrew admitted there were long days of filming and in the final scene he had to deliver a three-page monologue.
He said: “It was quite nerve-racking. It felt like the entire six-month run that I have done on Coronation Street was distilled into that one monologue because it’s very rare in television that you’re going to have a big monologue like that.
“I remember waiting all week for this one big scene. I felt a lot of nervous energy going into that scene, which was good because that’s exactly how Justin would feel too as it’s his last big gamble.
“It was definitely the longest speech I have had, being in Coronation Street, and it was quite cathartic to get it all out.”
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