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‘I’m good at evil. I’ve even ‘killed’ James McAvoy!’: Emmerdale’s Gillian Kearney on being TV’s nastiest villain

Gillian Kearney attends the National Television Awards (Anthony Harvey/Getty Images)
Gillian Kearney attends the National Television Awards (Anthony Harvey/Getty Images)

EMMERDALE’S Gillian Kearney says being TV’s nastiest villain comes as second nature – having previously bumped off Hollywood star James McAvoy.

Gillian, 44, has spent two-and-a-half years in the ITV soap, with her character Emma Barton pushing husband James to his death.

“I’ve played a lot of killers on telly,” said mum-of-one Gillian, who is nominated in the Best Villain category at this Saturday’s British Soap Awards.

“I played David Suchet’s daughter in Murder In Mind and killed James McAvoy’s character.

“James is a lovely man. He was really young and not long out of drama school – but I had to burn him alive.

“I was the supposedly-innocent woman in Blue Murder who turned out to be the killer. And I’ve played loads of other evil characters.”

Emmerdale’s initial brief labelled Emma “the woman from hell”.

Since then she has been at the heart of most of the nastiness, deviousness and manipulation in the show.

“She’s a real piece of work,” admits Gillian.

“I’ve got to justify what she does because it’d be really boring to play it the same way all the time.

“I think she’s a survivor and in the past year, since killing her husband, it’s all been about not getting found out. Even though she hates herself, she feels she has to do it.”

Trying to keep the secret reached a low point when Emma duped dementia patient Ashley – played by John Middleton who is nominated for three awards – into thinking he hadn’t seen her do it.

Taking advantage of someone so ill provoked a storm of condemnation from viewers on social media.

“I’m not on Twitter or Facebook and it’s probably just as well,” she said.

Gillian will fly back early from holiday in Spain to attend the 19th annual awards.

She faces competition from Corrie’s Connor McIntyre and EastEnders’ Jake Wood for Best Villain.

Instead of the ceremony being recorded for screening days later, ITV are showing it live for the first time.

It will be part of a big live showbiz weekend for the channel with the final of Britain’s Got Talent on Sunday.

It can be a wild night but Gillian says that the live aspect means everyone will have to be on their sober best behaviour.