Jason Merrells (Emmerdale's Declan) interview
Next week on Emmerdale, Declan's (Jason Merrells) vivacious ex-wife Ella arrives and quickly makes herself at home in his bachelor pad.
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Talk us through Declan’s journey up to now?
“Well Declan’s come into the village about six months ago and found himself with an opportunity to invest and got himself emotionally involved with the owner of Home Farm, who he invested with. Fell in love with her, although it never actually got off the ground, found out she was a murderer and is now settling into building Home Farm into some kind of business.”
Are you enjoying it?
“I do enjoy it, they are great people. Emmerdale has been a real revelation. I think actors like to work a lot, and you work a lot here, you work hard.”
How would you sum him up? What drives him?
“Declan is driven, he’s very alpha male, shrewd, charming, quite cocky, also quite shutdown emotionally. He’s not let all the things that have happened to him get in the way of him functioning, things like his divorce and being estranged from his daughter. It’s something that he doesn’t spend time thinking about. He’s buries it. So I think he’s got stuff to come out, so he’s interesting from that point of view. He’s a ‘do-er’ and takes clear actions, which I like.”
How did you feel when you found out that you were taking over Home Farm and were being joined by a family?
“There is a whole family being landed on me and the way that each of them arrives is quite interesting. I think the producers are looking for a different tone at Home Farm now, less intense and a bit funnier than the brilliant but intense stories of the past.”
What is the history of Declan and Ella’s relationship, why did they split?
“He needs a favour and they’ve done this scam a couple of times in the past where she buys something for Declan, because Nathan won’t sell it to me, I get her to buy it on my behalf. They’re very fiery, but have a daughter so they liaise because of Mia. But he doesn’t expect her to then arrive in the village and be back.
“I think he feels very conflicted about it. Perhaps they got divorced too quickly. He’s been trying to work and build a future without her and I think it’s the last thing he expected. But I think there is something still there between them. The main thing about their relationship for me is that hopefully it will be funny. They have quite a lot of banter with each other.”
How easily can Declan be won back by Ella?
“Corrinne’s fantastic and from the scenes we’ve done already, we’ve both got the same idea of how it should be. It’s two people who are estranged but maybe should be together, wise-cracking at each other and constantly arguing but actually having a real connection through the arguing. Hopefully, it will be funny.”
What is Declan’s relationship like with his dad?
“He’s quite estranged from his father so maybe that’s a reconciliation that will be interesting at some stage.”
> Read our previous interview with Jason Merrells.
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