Joe Absolom has revealed the truth behind Emmerdale villain Ray Walters’s romantic attachment to Laurel Thomas (Charlotte Bellamy), and shared some insight into his relationship with adoptive mum Celia Daniels (Jaye Griffiths).
Ray has been manipulating April Windsor (Amelia Flanagan) and her boyfriend Dylan Penders (Fred Kettle) into delivering and selling drugs for him.
Things took an even darker turn when Ray led April into sexual slavery.
But when we learned that Celia has been pulling the strings all along, it became clear that Ray, while ruthless, isn’t half as dangerous as her!
Chatting to RadioTimes.com and other media, Absolom explained: “To April and Dylan, he’s at the top. But to actually most people watching him, people realize he’s one of the many, one of the cogs.
“And you see above him is [Celia], who he’s terrified of and attached to in a sort of maternal sense. He’s very much the child and the subservient one,” he added.
“Whereas with Dylan and April, he’s kind of the dominator, if you like, or the driving force of most of those things. Most of my scenes are different with those two guys to what you see with [Celia], who’s this very formidable, strident character.”
Describing a moment on set where a co-star had yet to find out the nature of Ray and Celia’s relationship, the actor revealed: “We did a scene the other day and Jaye touched my cheek, and one of the other actors went, ‘wait, are you two dating?'”
While Celia’s more tactile moments seem to be used to keep Ray in line, there’s another, warmer opportunity to see Ray’s softer side when he takes a genuine shine to Laurel!
“I think when he meets Laurel, there’s something that brings a side out to him that he didn’t know he was going to have, but the writers did. I like it because it has a different side of it. It’s more human.
“I think he sees a family,” Absolom added. “Sees her with her kids and sees a family life that he never had because he was adopted very early on by Celia when he was eight.
“So we see in episodes later, not flashbacks, but little hints of what his life has been like. So I think to me, Laurel is this kind of woman who has a business and a family and children are kind of, you know, interesting. She lives in a nice house.
“Yeah, I think it’s attractive to Ray in lots of different ways.”
But despite the possibility of love on the horizon, Ray will turn his attention back to crime, discovering that Dylan has gone behind his back and stolen some money after a job.
“He’s got the backpack and he’s been double crossed, I guess,” muses the star.
“So it’s a real moment where he realises he may be losing a grip on these two people and that he has to now take it to a different level and try and get them back and get the money back and get them back onside. So it’s a risk of losing everything, really.”
As Dylan and April make a desperate bid to escape, we’ll have to wait and see if Ray will catch up with them.
But Absolom is enjoying his time on Emmerdale, summing up what he’s been up to since stepping into the role of Ray.
“Since I’ve arrived, I’ve been paying kids to deliver drugs, I’ve been delivering drugs myself, I’ve been pimping out other characters. And I’ve taught Dylan how to drive. There’s a real gamut of opportunity for the Dales!”
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