Denise Welch's 'Hollyoaks' character was inspired by documentary 'Athlete A'.
Denise Welch as Trish
The 62-year-old star recently joined the Channel 4 soap as dance school owner Trish Minniver, who Denise admits is a "bit of a bully" and one of the inspirations for her plots was the Netflix film, a documentary about an abusive gymnastics coach.
She said: "On one hand, Trish is camp and a bit of fun, but on the other she’s incredibly passive aggressive, a narcissist, and a bit of a bully.
"Trish’s storylines were inspired by 'Athlete A', where loads of gymnasts came out and said the coaches had bullied them.
"'Hollyoaks' has diluted that story and put it into the form of Trish and how she behaves at the village’s dance school.
"I’ve seen documentaries and spoken to a lot of people over the years who have had mothers who are like that and we’ve also seen it coming out in recent storylines with the way she behaves towards her daughter Maxine."
While Denise has starred in 'Coronation Street', 'Casualty', 'Waterloo Road', and 'Down to Earth', among other shows throughout her acting career, she is really interested in true crime and would love to retrain in psychology or forensics.
She added to the Daily Star newspaper: "I’m a true crime aficionado. I am really interested in people and how they tick.
"If I were more intelligent, I would retrain in psychology or forensics. That’s my secret dream job."
Denise's comments come just a few months after her on-screen daughter Nikki Sanderson (Maxine Minniver) admitted she was advised to ditch her dreams of becoming an actress and go into forensics when she was at school.
She said: "When I went to the careers office at school, my two options were an actress, or something in the forensics field, as I was really interested in that.
"I loved studying the human body."
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