Emmerdale's Karen Blick cried when bosses told her Lydia would be raped

ok.co.uk:

Her character is usually the life and soul of the Dingle household, but Emmerdale actress Karen Blick reveals she’s had to tap into darker emotions for Lydia’s upcoming storyline.The 48-year-old plays Lydia Dingle, who arrived in the village as a bereavement counsellor.

She later returned with her depressed cockatoo, Steve, named after her dead husband. Initially on the periphery, Lydia became enmeshed in village life when she began dating Sam Dingle before becoming his wife.

After three years of marriage, Lydia recently reconnected with a man from her past, Craig [Ben Addis] – the father of her son Toby, who was stillborn.

But the story will take a dark turn when Craig sexually assaults Lydia. “I’ve played Lydia for seven years, and she’s become part of me, so I feel very protective of her,” explains Karen. “She’s like a really good friend, and if somebody was telling me this is going to happen to a really good friend, I would have an emotional reaction. “James [Hooton, who plays Sam] had no idea – he kept saying, ‘I know where this is going’ and then when Jane [Hudson, the show’s executive producer] said, ‘Then Craig rapes Lydia’, it was shocking.