Coronation Street star Calum Lill has revealed how his villainous character Joel Deering will deal with the surprise return of Lauren Bolton.
The dangerous lawyer faces a major crisis in the coming days as Lauren starts to reconnect with some of her old friends from Weatherfield – starting with Roy Cropper.
Monday's episode (July 8) saw Lauren appear at Roy's bedside in hospital after learning that he'd suffered a heart attack. She has been in hiding since being brutally attacked by Joel earlier this year.
In upcoming scenes, Joel learns that Lauren is back on the scene and he worries about what this could mean for the life he has built for himself in Weatherfield.
Speaking about the storyline, Calum explained: "When Joel attacked Lauren, he worried that the police were going to find her and then he'd be arrested.
"They didn't find her and she wasn't in the apartment, so Joel thought she must be alive. He was just waiting for her to go to the police but then she didn't.
"Joel has gone from guilt and keeping his head down, back to that arrogance of: 'I've got away with something again because I'm so clever'.
"When he first sees Lauren again, he hopes she's so scared she'll never come back. He sees her and thinks: 'Oh no, the chickens have come home to roost. I need to sort this out'."
He continued: "Joel has genuine feelings for his fiancée Dee-Dee – he's absolutely besotted by her. It's like a sandcastle falling in front of him now if Lauren ruins it.
"I've tried to play Joel as someone who's incredibly selfish and incredibly ambitious. Who's to know where the line is for him, because so far there hasn’t been one? It's been self-interest above all else.
"Joel has literally got to fight for his life as he knows it, because he'll go from being a well-paid solicitor with a nice flat in the centre of town, a nice car, a fiancée, a wedding to plan, a daughter that he loves – to someone in prison with people he's used to representing. He's got everything to lose and I think that's not going to make him better."
Upcoming flashback scenes will delve into Joel and Lauren's history for the first time, addressing many of the unanswered questions from recent months.
Calum added: "It was nice to finally know what had been going on behind the scenes. I knew that off camera all of this was going on with Lauren, but until this point, I didn't see it as it wasn't scripted.
"The scripts didn’t come out until two weeks before filming it, so I just had to make up this whole world. To finally get it was a relief but also I thought: 'This is dark, I’m going to really have to find a dark place to film this'."
Coronation Street continues tonight (July 9) at 8pm on ITV1.
Coronation Street airs on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 8pm on ITV1 and streams on ITVX.