Emmerdale's Samantha Giles says 'playing a cougar is mortifying'

Emmerdale star Samantha Giles has revealed that kissing her younger co-star Kelvin Fletcher wasn't easy.

The 42-year-old actress, who plays Bernice Thomas in Emmerdale, gets to lock lips with the 30-year-old's alter-ego Andy Sugden as their characters get closer.

"Playing a cougar was mortifying. I felt a bit sorry for Kelvin," she told Closer. "When I started in Emmerdale, he was a young lad - a teenager - and I couldn't get that image out of my head!"

Bernice and an almost-naked Andy kiss at the opening of her new salon, Beauty And Bernice, in Tuesday's episode. The snog soon leads into a fling.

"Andy Sugden has been nice to her and she sees it as a big come-on. He's given a golden ticket for a free spray tan, and the others walk in to find them snogging," Sam explained.

CATEGORIES

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.