Emmerdale star reveals she coped with horrific rape plot by putting item in her bra – The Mirror

Emmerdale fans saw her at the centre of one of the ITV soap’s most harrowing storylines this week when kind-hearted Lydia Dingle was shockingly raped by an ex-boyfriend. It is testament to actress Karen Blick’s talents as an actress that she has been handed such a difficult story, but what makes it all the more remarkable is she was actually on the verge of quitting acting altogether when the Emmerdale job came along.

In 30 years as an actress, Karen had only appeared on television twice. And she had even begun telling people she was a teacher when they asked what she did fora living.“ Acting is such a precarious business and in 2007 I trained as a teacher,” she recalls. “I did supply work teaching drama in secondary schools and then got a job at my old sixth form college in Halifax.

“If I was out and got chatting to someone and they said: ‘oh, what do you do Karen?’ I’d got to the point where I’d say: ‘I’m a teacher.’

“Because if you say ‘I’m an actor’, the first thing people say is ‘well what have you been in?’ And I’d say ‘well, lots of village halls’. And then they think you’re a bit deluded. I felt like going ‘It’s true, look, here’s my Equity card’.”

Karen’s two early TV appearances were as a teacher in a 2006 episode of Channel 4 comedy drama No Angels and then in Emmerdale as an unnamed nurse at an abortion clinic attended by Viv Hope. “Otherwise, I’ve done plays and worked for small scale touring theatre companies and done issue-based theatre in schools, corporate role play, community radio and Christmas pantomimes,” she explains.

Karen, 48, was “absolutely gutted” when she heard she had failed to get the police officer role in Emmerdale after her audition in 2015.

“I met the director and casting director,” she recalls, “The audition went really well and I totally convinced myself I’d got the part. When I didn’t get it I called my agent and asked them to phone Emmerdale for some feedback. I said: ‘If they think I’m not very good. I’m going to do something else.’

“I thought: ‘I’m getting older, I’ve got a family and maybe I’m just deluding myself here, I’ve got to be sensible.’

“My agent rang them and they were lovely and actually wanted to give me something bigger. I thought they were just being nice and then two weeks later they asked me to come in to audition for Lydia.”

Still not able to believe her luck, during her first six months at Emmerdale, Karen continued to act alongside teaching job.

The following year, in 2016, she was awarded a contract and she has been in the show ever since.

Initially Lydia ran a bereavement group in the village hall. After going on disastrous dates with Paddy Kirk and Rishi Sharma, she eventually settled down with gamekeeper Sam Dingle and landed a job as a cleaner at Home Farm.

But recently, while attending a recruitment fair, she bumped into Craig (Ben Addis), who she hadn’t seen since they grew up together in a children’s home. The two reminisced about the past and Lydia revealed that the reason that she left the home was because she was pregnant with his child – a son, Toby, who was stillborn.

Craig gave Lydia a job, but after a charged moment between the pair, she realised she might be giving him the wrong impression.

Speaking ahead of last night’s broadcast of the rape scenes, Karen said: “She doesn’t feel comfortable, so she decides to see him in his office and nip it in the bud and tell him that she’s leaving the job.

“Craig becomes really upset and they sit and talk, because she feels sorry for him. He goes in for a kiss and she tells him no, but he’s very insistent and he then forces himself on her and rapes her.

“It’s the end of the working day and he knows everybody else has left. Lydia freezes and that’s something that gives her a lot of guilt afterwards. But it’s a defence mechanism – she’s terrified.”

Karen – who lives in Yorkshire with husband Simon and their children Ruby, 13, and Oliver, nine – did everything she could to prepare for the harrowing plot.

Producers consulted the charity Rape Crisis in order to ensure the storyline was portrayed accurately and sensitively and Karen also spoke to survivors of sexual violence.

And in order to stop herself becoming overwhelmed during filming, she used crystal therapy to help her draw a line between herself and devastated Lydia.

“A friend is a crystal healing therapist,” she explains. “She said she could help me protect my energy. I’m really open-minded, so I thought ‘why not?’

“She gave me a healing session then gave me three crystals – one to put in my bra when I do scenes and two to put in Lydia’s shoes when I’m not filming.”

The alternative practice uses semi-precious stones in the belief that they can alter the body’s energy levels. Karen used Carn-elian, an orange-coloured semi-precious, said to help get rid of unwanted or negative energies.

“It’s also known as the actor’s crystal,” Karen adds. “Carnelian is good for confidence, creativity and setting boundaries, so I have a very clear idea of what is Lydia and what is me.

“My friend told me to think of Lydia as a really good friend and remember that this wasn’t happening to me. I got really emotional after a scene and I could feel myself almost getting overwhelmed, so I said out loud ‘poor, poor Lydia’. That helped me make a distinction between the two.”

Karen admits she was shocked when she was told about the storyline. “My initial instinct was: ‘please don’t do that to Lydia. I felt really protective of her and worried about the responsibility of telling that story.”

Karen said co-star James Hooton, who plays Lydia’s screen husband Sam, was also shocked: “He was shaking his head. Both of us had tears in our eyes. It was the strongest reaction I’ve ever had to a potential story”. But Karen says she is “very good at looking after myself” and does yoga every day. And however emotionally exhausting this storyline may be, she has no regrets about the career she has chosen.

“When I left teaching, it was a risk,” she reflects. “I had a steady job, pension and paid holidays. I was a working mum and I thought: ‘what do I do?’ but I went with my gut and my heart. I’m so pleased I did. It’s like a fairy story really.”