Emmerdale Lydia Dingle star cried her eyes out over harrowing rape storyline

29 August 2023 , 06:00

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Karen Blick - who plays Lydia Dingle on the ITV soap - has admitted she was in tears as she struggled with the tough storyline

Emmerdale actress Karen Blick has confessed she and her co-star cried their eyes out over Lydia Dingle's harrowing rape storyline.

Lydia is a huge part of the ITV soap and a much-loved character, having been married to Sam Dingle (played by James Hooton) for a number of years. However, she admits the pair struggled with the latest storyline, which will see Craig rape Lydia.

In next week's episodes, Craig and Lydia nearly share a moment, with her feeling immediate regret over what had happened. Struggling with their friendship going too far, she decides to resign but finds it difficult when Craig tells her how much he means to her. She takes it back, but worries if that's the right decision as she grapples with her emotions.

Craig forces himself on Lydia

Later, Craig reveals his feelings for Lydia and she is terrified when he starts to force himself on her. In harrowing scenes, she is raped by Craig, and following her ordeal, she doesn't know what to do and is understandably unable to process what's just happened. Craig drives Lydia home, and she quickly escapes as she runs upstairs to the shower.

She breaks down in tears, and hides away her clothes, vowing to keep what happened a secret. Karen herself learned of the storyline quite early on, and she admits both her and James cried when they were told about the storyline.

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Speaking to The Mirror and other press, she said: "It was quite early on this year. They weren't sure if they were going to run it, and my initial reaction was, please not Lydia, please. I felt very protective of the character and conflicted as an actor because it's an important story I'm telling, but this terrible thing happening to somebody you are so close to, and the repercussions for that character going forward. A few weeks after that, myself and James got an email regarding a story meeting with Jane.

Lydia struggles in the aftermath

"when Jane said, and then Craig raped Lydia, it kind of hit you. It is a shocking thing to hear. And I saw the look on James' face and he was just shaking his head again and said I didn't expect that. Both of us had tears in our eyes."

The scenes were tough to film for Lydia and she did her best to prepare herself for the storyline including yoga and hypnotherapy.

"I actually began really looking after myself. I made sure that I was in a good, strong physical psychological place in order to tackle this story. I had some hypnotherapy. I started a daily yoga practice so I could get rid of anything that might have been physically staying with me at the end of the day, especially in the scenes straight after, where I could feel myself holding myself and sat in a certain way having processed what's happened," she explained of what she did in the run up to the scenes.

*If you've been the victim of sexual assault, you can access help and resources via www.rapecrisis.org.uk or calling the national telephone helpline on 0808 802 9999

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Jasmine Allday