Coronation Street spoilers follow.
Coronation Street star Luca Toolan has addressed his character Mason Radcliffe's dark new storyline.
The ITV soap recently announced that it will explore knife crime in a new storyline for Mason, who will be stabbed during an altercation with his brothers Matty and Logan in early January.
The incident will leave the Weatherfield community in shock as Mason fights for his life in hospital.
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Toolan has now spoken out about the upcoming storyline, saying he was "taken aback" when he found out his involvement in it.
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"To be honest, I was really taken aback when I first heard," he said. "I think because for all of Mason’s life, he’s been the one on the other end of it, so I could have seen Mason being the one to carry out the attack rather than Mason being the victim.
"So yeah, it took me by surprise, but a nice surprise from an actor’s perspective because they’ve given me a really juicy script as well as all the resources that are necessary to do a storyline like this, including working closely with The Ben Kinsella Trust who have been an excellent help."
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He also noted the importance of soaps tackling these types of storylines, saying: "I’ve always enjoyed Coronation Street as a viewer, but I completely underestimated the power that it has on its audience until I was involved in the bullying storyline and saw the effect that it has on the viewers.
"Fingers crossed this storyline will be received the way we are hoping it will be and ultimately, if one person drops a knife and someone is saved, then that would definitely make it all worth it."
As for what it was like filming the scenes, Toolan said it was "really intense", adding: "I worked my butt off for that and just prepared and prepared and prepared. We had a vision of it being somewhat like the Saving Private Ryan scene."
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He continued: "It was very well written in the script. I did a lot of research on that to see how you would breathe, what the symptoms of that would be, how it would look. And then I was just researching different things like: 'Does it hurt to get stabbed?'
"Surprisingly, a lot of the information that I was reading was that you don't feel it, which spooked me, but then that changes the way that you play it, because it's more of shock and focus on the breath, as opposed to screaming and agony."
Coronation Street airs on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 8pm on ITV1 and streams on ITVX.
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