A Liverpool actor made his first appearance on a TV soap - much to the delight of his mum.
Jake Hagan, from Huyton but now living in Tuebrook, recently featured on Coronation Street alongside Elle Mulvaney who is best known for playing Amy Barlow. The 30-year-old played Kris - who at first Amy believes is “up to no good” and trying to spike women on their night outs. Viewers learned this wasn’t the case for Jake’s Kris who offered Amy some words of warning about the club and its reputation.
The City of Liverpool College graduate said “it never stops being weird” seeing himself on TV - having previously featured in The Responder and Malpractice earlier this year. However, being a “northerner” appearing on Corrie was “one to check off the list”.
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The Scouser, who works as a civil servant when not acting, told the ECHO: “I got to work with Elle Mulvaney, she was so lovely, really down to earth and welcoming. She’s been in Coronation Street for about years and she’s very used to the way they work and is very switched on.
“Soaps tend to shoot quicker than other TV jobs and it must take a massive amount of preparation with a very quick turnover, so she was very on the ball but equally supportive. There were three guest actors including myself for the scenes we shot so it was nice having people in the same boat because it can be a bit daunting coming in as a guest actor on projects.”
No one was more proud of Jake’s performance than his mum Jackie. Jake is a fan of the ITV programme “by proxy” because of his mum's love of the show.
Jake said: “She hasn’t missed a single episode the entire time I’ve been alive and if she has she’s always caught the omnibus or recorded it. Back in the day me and my brothers had to record them on VHS if she was working. I’ve watched some of the iconic moments with her when I was younger like the tram crash and Richard Hillman’s reign of terror on the street.
“She was absolutely buzzing when she found out I was going to be on the show. I could get a role in a Martin Scorsese film and she’d be like ‘That’s nice love’ but if I got on any of the holy trinity soaps - Corrie, Emmerdale or EastEnders - she’d absolutely lose it. She told everyone who would listen to watch it.”
Jake’s interest in acting started when he was a child “always pretending to be characters and doing impersonations”. However, believing people from around his area couldn’t be actors he put his career aspirations on hold.
He added: “I’d never seen anyone who spoke like me on telly acting. Then I had a chance encounter with someone who was studying it at college and they told me how there was an educational path you could go down to try and get into the industry.
"I quit my sports course and started an acting one, but still didn’t think it could happen until I saw Stephen Graham in This is England being unapologetically Scouse. I thought ‘Wow, he’s brilliant and he’s in this incredible film, maybe I can do it after all’.”
