Emmerdale’s Jai Sharma has ‘big storyline coming up’

Emmerdale’s Jai Sharma has a "big storyline coming up" that will make him "ruthless" again.
Fans have watched the factory owner – played by Chris Bisson – developed a warmer, softer, side since his girlfriend Holly Barton (Sophie Powles) died of a heroin overdose last year and, most recently, his young daughter Eliza suffer from seizures – thought to be brought on as a result of cerebral palsy – but the soap’s boss Iain MacLeod has teased a major twist.
Speaking to The Sun Online, he said: "I think actually having a child he’s able to hang on to has really changed him. I felt that the Holly story really changed him as well. His reaction to that and her death really sobered him up and made him grow up. I still feel like the ruthless Jai is still in there. Chris and Gaynor [Faye, who plays Eliza’s mother Megan Macey] don’t know this yet, but we’ve just done a long-term story conference and big stories emerged from this whole Eliza thing and I feel like it will give Jai an opportunity to be a bit ruthless again.
"There’s a big storyline. Megan’s no stranger to getting her claws out either, and there’s a common enemy so this might feel like the calm before the storm of their ruthless behaviour."
However, Chris – who has had to play out a number of hard storylines, including being a drug addict, kidnapping and locking a pregnant woman in a freezer – is worried he’ll be axed from the show because his character can become quite nasty when he wants to be.
The 42-year-old actor said recently: "There were very frank and honest conversations with the producer about the character saying ‘have we gone too far and is it time to call it a day or do we redeem him?’ On the trajectory he was on he was unsustainable but we came to the conclusion that actually he wasn’t a bad character and that’s lovely to play.
"He came in as a much nicer character and he did go off the rails but we have really pulled him back and that’s lovely to play. It’s also lovely to play a long-term story – I’m really pleased we see his struggle day-to-day. He hits the bottle, he’s bought some drugs. It requires a lot of strength for him to hold it together."