Chris Bisson had some "difficult conversations" with his family before taking on Emmerdale's Down’s syndrome termination storyline.
Chris Bisson
The 45-year-old star has a cousin who has Down’s syndrome, so he needed to speak to his auntie about the controversial plot - which will see his character Jai Sharma and Laurel Thomas (Charlotte Bellamy) come to the heart-breaking decision to terminate their pregnancy after discovering their baby has Down's syndrome - to see if his relative would find the storyline "upsetting".
He said: "It’s a difficult story for me, I’ll be quite straight about that.
"I have a cousin who has Down’s syndrome, and he has been the centre of our family … I’ve had to have difficult conversations with both charities and with family as well.
"I had to speak to my auntie because my cousin is a massive 'Emmerdale' fan, and I wanted her to know that this story was coming. I also wanted to work out if he [his cousin] would be watching it and whether he would process the information or interpret the information in the way we play it, whether he would be able to make sense of that, whether it would be upsetting for him."
The former 'Corrie' star also has personal experience of chorionic villus sampling.
He said: "I know from personal experience that it’s difficult to make that decision about whether you have the test or not, there are so many conflicting things in your mind as to how it could affect the baby. Obviously, you can lose the baby, there’s a very small chance. And then also your preparation for the results of that test which is extremely difficult."
Chris admitted some of the conversations he had with case studies while researching the plot were "some of the most heart-breaking" he has had when working on a storyline.
Speaking to the Digital Spy 'Soap Scoop' podcast, he added: "I did a lot of research for this part, and we had some case studies as well.
"The conversations with the case studies were some of the most heart-breaking conversations that I’ve ever had to have when researching a storyline. It was very important to me to play those truthfully, honestly."
Listen to the full Chris Bisson interview on the Digital Spy 'Soap Scoop' podcast, available now.
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