Hollyoaks star James Sutton has stated that he isn't coming back to the Channel 4 soap after he most recent departure, insisting that he is properly "done" this time.
The actor first played John Paul McQueen in 2006, before leaving in 2008 to join Emmerdale for a few years. He then returned to Hollyoaks for a second stint from 2012 to 2017, before leaving again for two years and coming back in 2019, with his third exit airing earlier this year.
Speaking on The Marvyn Harrison Podcast, Sutton admitted that while he has left and come back "a couple of times", this time, he's gone for good.
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"Yeah, I'm done," he said. "I'm very much done."
Explaining why he decided to quit the soap this time, Sutton stated: "I think I'd exhausted everything that there was left to do with that character, and the show changed a lot in the last couple of years."
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One change Sutton discussed was the reduction from five episodes per week to three, which happened in 2024. "The way that the contract is set up on Hollyoaks, you get paid per episode, so if you've got two less episodes a week..." he said before trailing off.
"The direction of travel I didn't feel was a positive one for me, and it's no shade on the guys there," Sutton added.
"They work incredibly hard. It's a tricky beast to get a show like that on the air. Three nights a week is no mean feat, so massive respect."
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Sutton also stated that he "wanted autonomy over everything" he was doing.
"For the longest time, when you're working on a show like that, you outsource everything," the actor explained.
"Someone else writes the lines, someone else writes the story, the character, everything, someone else tells you what to wear and stand there and look that way. It's very formulaic.
"I think, to a degree, you outsource your value as well because if you're not in a big storyline, you're thinking, 'Who am I?'"
Since leaving the soap, Sutton has focused on his "self-trust" project Protocol and his OnlyFans account.
Hollyoaks airs on Mondays-Wednesdays with its Channel 4 streaming premiere at 7am, then an E4 broadcast the same night at 7pm. Full episodes are also released on YouTube a week after their Channel 4 release.
Selected omnibus episodes are available via Prime Video.
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