Emmerdale star Jay Kontzle has admitted to feeling “territorial” when his co-stars took over Home Farm to film Lydia Dingle’s party.
As viewers will know, Dawn Fletcher recently dumped Kontzle’s character Billy Fletcher because she has fallen for bad boy Joe Tate.
In next week’s episodes, Billy finds out the truth about Dawn’s affair and may go out for revenge during a big surprise birthday party for Lydia at Home Farm, where Billy and Dawn have lived with Kim Tate in recent years.
Discussing what it was like to have the iconic set suddenly taken over by a group of his co-stars for the episode, Kontzle said he felt “a bit thrown” as familiar surroundings and set pieces were rearranged to accommodate the scene.
“You get a bit thrown a little bit, it’s like, ‘You guys don’t belong here, you’ve had your time, you’ve been here for a full week, come on, off you pop!’” he joked.
“It’s a long time to be having someone in your house for. You become very territorial, even when the cast were resting after, we sat on the sofas that you’d usually sit on and I’m demoted to a tiny single seat chair for children, you’re like, ‘Erm excuse me, I’ve lived here a couple of years now!’”
The party will also see Joe’s various other secrets and crimes come to the fore, with other suspects in the upcoming whodunit regarding the character including Clemmie Reed, Caleb Miligan, Ruby Fox-Migilan, Charity Dingle, Noah Dingle, Cain Dingle and Kerry Wyatt.
“There’s all these different personalities and egos falling about! There’s a lot of energies in the room in terms of the characters and scenes themselves, so it’s interesting. It was good to bounce off during the scenes,” Kontzle explained.
“It can be overwhelming sometimes because it’s quite tiring and then it feels because me, Liv [Bromley, who plays Dawn], Ned [Porteous, who plays Joe] and Claire [King, who plays Kim], we all kind of work in that space, it feels like when you’ve had a house party at your house and you’re like, ‘Well it’s a bit too much now, can you guys leave?’
“Now I’ve got to live here and it’s like, ‘I’ve not tidied up, can we move this party to your house please?’. It’s awkward now, we’ve got to work here now after you, you know what I mean?”
