Kieron Richardson has praised Emmett J. Scanlan for helping to push himself "out of his comfort zone" on ‘Hollyoaks’, and has called for the star to return to the soap.
The 34-year-old actor and the ‘Peaky Blinders’ star made up one of Hollyoaks’ most well-supported couples when their characters Ste Hay and Brendan Brady – who fans dubbed Stendan – got together, and Kieron recalls Emmett being "so brave in his choices" as an actor.
He said: "I loved working with Emmett. I loved learning a craft from a different angle. He was so brave in his choices, and maybe I wasn’t as brave an actor.
"He helped me push myself out of my comfort zone and do things that I wouldn’t necessarily choose to do myself.
"We are still in contact … I speak on the phone to him every now and then – not all of the time, he’s obviously very busy, and I’m busy with the family life.
"I saw him at an awards recently, and we had a little drink together and a catch up. We were reminiscing about the good old days."
Kieron would love to see soap bad boy Brendan – who is currently in prison for murder – return to the village, and believes it would be "a big deal" because Stendan were so "iconic" in Soapland.
He added: "It would be interesting to see, because it doesn’t really happen that often – when an iconic soap couple, that have been separated for years, reunite.
"I think if it were to happen, it would be quite a big deal. Something really exciting, and something that I’d obviously be up for doing, but I’m sure Emmett is very busy, so we just have to hope one day he stops getting all of these incredible roles and comes back to me."
Kieron recently admitted a lot of fans have been calling for evil Brendan to be back on screen, and their wish was granted this week when an old episode featuring the evil character aired on E4 last night (16.04.20) as part of the show’s ‘Hollyoaks Favourites’, which looks back at classic eps.