Gary Lucy’s mother convinced him to take on the ‘Hollyoaks’ male rape storyline.
The 35-year-old actor starred as Luke Morgan in the Channel 4 soap between 1999 and 2002, where his character had to endure the horrific ordeal at the hands of his bullies, and Gary is now glad he took on the tough storyline despite it being very daring at the time.
He said: "At the time, my character was being bullied in the show and [the producers] said come up to the office, we want to talk about a storyline and I was like, ‘oh no he’s going to try and top himself’ or whatever. And basically, she said they wanted to cover male rape. ‘It’s never been done before, we want to do it right, we think you can do it.’
"I was like blown away by it; I was 17-years-old, 18 at the time. So I went home and spoke to my parents. My dad didn’t like the idea of that but my mum was like, no you’ve got to do it and thankfully, we did it and handed it amazingly and properly, as best we could, and reaped the awards for it."
Gary was thrilled to be asked to come back to the show so he can share Luke’s plight 15 years on.
Speaking on ITV’s Loose Women, he shared: "Bryan Kirkwood’s [executive producer] idea for the story is incredible. Basically, having not dealt with it properly having run away, [we explore] how that has impacted on Luke’s life 15 years on; what’s happened and what’s sort of stayed with you. To show that on screen will be phenomenal.
"He’s been through a lot and hopefully the audience who saw it the first time around will understand why he’s in this state and for those who didn’t see him, I hope that they’ll root for him and realise he needs to deal with everything and live the life he would have led had he not experienced what he did."
Gary Lucy’s mother convinced him to take daring storyline
