Harvey Virdi thinks she was "quite lucky" when she was growing up because she only had "the odd instant" of racial hatred directed at her.
The ‘Hollyoaks’ star believes the Channel 4 soap’s hard-hitting far-right extremism storyline "brings it home again" what people went through with racial abuse, and what some are "still going through".
She said: "Being a person of colour, you have experiences of racism and hatred towards you.
"I think I was quite lucky because I grew up and had the odd instant, but not a big deal.
"But a lot of my friends in different parts of the country had more.
"When we do something like this [the far-right plot] it brings it home again, people’s experiences and what they went through.
"And what some people are still going through."
The plot has seen Ste Hay – played by Kieron Richardson – be groomed a far-right group, which includes Ray Quinn’s character Jonny Baxter.
And Ray is pleased to be making a start of raising awareness about the dangers of extremism.
He said: "Talking about it and being open about it and going, ‘We can change this, we can make a difference.’
"My children and their future children, it’s their generation that’s going to change all this. Not us, but we can start."
Speaking in a joint interview on a video posted on the Counter Terrorism Policing UK YouTube page, Harvey added: "I suppose starting the journey with our storyline is us saying, ‘It’s OK to talk about it,’ and you can turn round and say to someone, ‘This isn’t right, it doesn’t feel right.’ And knowing there is something can be done about that."
The far-right extremism storyline will come to a head with an hour-long episode, which will air on E4 on Friday (15.11.19) when Ste’s plan to escape the criminal group is discovered.
Reflecting on the filming, Ray said: "It felt like the pinnacle of the storyline and the journey as an actor – it felt like the end.
"We were at the edge of a cliff and emotions were running quite high on the day, so there are a lot of natural tears during the scenes that we were filming."
Harvey Virdi opens up on receiving ‘odd instant’ of racism
