Emmerdale's Marc Silcock has opened up about the difficulties of playing a paralysed character. The actor, whose alter ego Jackson Walsh soon learns he will never walk again following a devastating crash, admitted he had concerns about how to make his portrayal believable. He told the Scottish Daily Record: "I did have worries. My first reaction was, 'How am I going to be able to do it?'" Marc went on: "Of course it's difficult, being an able-bodied person, to be lying on a bed 12 to 14 hours every day. "Especially as an actor, as 90 per cent of communication is body language - but I haven't got any of that. It's just my face and words. "It's hard to cry and laugh in a scene because you are constantly thinking, 'How would this work? Would that part of my body move or not?' "I am constantly asking the people filming it to play the scenes back to make sure I haven't moved." Two nurses are on set during his scenes to watch out for movement, and Marc visited a spinal injury unit to speak to a man in a similar situation to Jackson. He also spends all day in a wheelchair to get used to it. Marc said: "I want to make it as real as possible because for people in those situations, the last thing I'd want to do is to cheat them out of the stress of what they are really going through." Click here to watch whatsontv.co.uk’s weekly soaps video preview, the Soap Scoop
