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While Hollyoaks’ Lacey Lloyd wasn’t initially written with a ‘little person’ in mind for the role, Annabelle Davis has embraced getting the chance to show diversity on screen.
Joining the soap last month, Lacey arrived in the village with a bang when interviewing for a position at Dee Valley Law.
Moving to town with her best friend and influencer Rayne, played by Neighbours star Jemma Donovan, the career driven trainee lawyer made it clear she would speak her mind.
Now Annabelle, 25, has spoken about how she came to be cast on the show.
‘It was lovely actually, Lucy Allan, who I worked with on The Dumping Ground – so she already knew me – she approached me, just saying “I’ve got a role, it’s not written for a little person but I’d love you to take a look and see if you would like to play her”,’ she explained when appearing on Loose Women on Wednesday.
‘It was nice, we had a few Zoom meetings where we discussed the character and the different ways we could take her.
‘It’s lovely to be given a role that isn’t made for a little person because that doesn’t really define who you are but on the other hand, it is nice to explore things, some perspective from a little person and actually give viewers that.’
Adding how important representation on screen was she added: ‘I think it’s really important that on TV, you are shown all of this diversity and we can all learn from it really, raising all the awareness.’
Speaking about how working on a soap had differed to her previous role on The Dumping Ground, where she played Sasha Bellman from 2015 to 2022, she said Hollyoaks gave her the chance to explore different topics than those she’d tackled on the kid’s series.
‘It is more adult topics and it’s on later [at night], but the main difference is that the scale of a soap is a whole machine of its own and I am still sort of learning the pace, but it’s been fun and a great learning curve and I think after this I think I could do anything,’ she said.
The actress also spoke about acting alongside her dad, Warwick Davis, in the recently released series Willow, in which she plays Mims.
‘It makes me emotional now thinking about it- is so cool and it was such an honour to see dad work back in that role,’ she said.
‘I don’t really cry at a lot of things that I watch on TV, but there are so many moments in that where it makes me tear up.
‘It’s so lovely to see a character 40 years later.’
Willow is streaming on Disney Plus. Loose Women airs weekdays from 12.30pm on ITV.
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