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Mikey North ‘blessed’ to shoot sinister Coronation Street scenes

Mikey North feels "blessed" his ‘Coronation Street’ character is facing off against another tough villain after his duel with Pat Phelan.
The 32-year-old star’s alter-ego Gary Windass will brawl with Rick Neelan (Greg Wood), who has pre-dug a grave in woodland ready to kill and bury the builder, next week, and while things don’t look good for Gary, Mikey finds such scenes "enjoyable" to film.
He said: "It’s a challenge but it’s been great. I’ve been blessed in working with two great villains, Phelan and now Rick which has been really enjoyable.
"Gary has often tried to bully people, like Seb down the years, but when he comes up against people like Rick, he realises he’s not so good at it after all."
Gary previously took on killer builder Pat (Connor McIntyre) until his mum Anna Windass (Debbie Rush) stabbed him to death – and Mikey hopes his character will learn to "calm down his enthusiasm" for his own sake.
Asked how his alter-ego gets himself in such difficult situations, he said: "I don’t know, he tries to do the right things for the right reasons but in actual fact he ends up getting himself into more trouble.
"He needs to learn how to calm down his enthusiasm.
"It’s been inevitable that things would go too far one day, he’s been up against some difficult situations, especially with the responsibility of the factory collapse.
"Being faced up against Rick things don’t look too promising for him."
Gary – who was responsible for the Underworld factory collapse, which left Rana Habeeb (Bhavna Limbachia) dead – is tricked by Rick into heading to the woodland, believing he is holding Sarah Platt (Tina O’Brien) captive.
Mikey explained: "Rick is clever … Gary goes looking for Sarah as she had gone missing and he is led to believe she is seen leaving with Rick.
"This gives Rick the chance pretend he has Sarah and get Gary to meet him in the woodland if he ever wants to see Sarah again.
"He feels instant panic. There is a grave there that has been pre-dug, obviously for Gary, and probably Sarah, he thinks at that point.
"And yeah … he comes to realisation things aren’t looking good."