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Jennifer Metcalfe: Hollyoaks avoided soap cliches for ‘darker’ cinematic scenes

Jennifer Metcalfe has promised ‘Hollyoaks’ will avoid all the soap cliches for its "darker" cinematic scenes.
The 36-year-old star’s character Mercedes McQueen will be trapped with Grace Black (Tamara Wall) and James (Nightingale) at Liam Donovan’s (Jude Monk McGowan) sinister Devil’s Dinner Party as she finds out the pair tried to kill her and gets given an ultimatum.
Opening up on filming the dramatic plot, she said: "Graeme Harper, the director, made it one of the most enjoyable blocks I’ve done. I always think that when you enjoy a block so much, it comes across on screen.
"I’ve watched and heard stuff back, and everyone is saying that this is the one to watch. They’ve literally got everything on that week – it’s nitty, gritty, and it’s quite film-like.
"It shies away from the tick boxes of soap, and I think that’s always really interesting to watch. Your characters and your stories just take a little darker direction, and we pushed it a bit."
Jennifer admitted the upcoming scenes have a bit of "everything", and she is delighted at how the party unfolds on screen.
She added: "Honestly, the way it was shot was just perfect. It is so soapy, and so dramatic. It has everything in there… literally blood, sweat, tears, and with some comedy as well.
"It’s crazy, unusual and dark. He sets up this Devil’s Dinner Party with all of his enemies in The Dog and it’s all fun and games from there on."
Liam will tell Mercedes she can save herself by killing Grace, and Jennifer teased her alter ego could have the motivation to go through with it.
She explained: "It could go one way or the other. My guess would be that she’d absolutely go crazy.
"The fact that they kept it quiet for so long, and I think Grace would be a double whammy, because obviously she took Sylver off Mercedes, so for her to have shot her as well!
"In that essence, she could potentially use that to work in her favour, and try to split them up."