ITV Coronation Street star shares tear-jerking spoilers about Gail Platt’s final episode
Coronation Street favourite Jack P Shepherd, who plays David Platt on the ITV soap, shared his struggles to say goodbye to Gail Platt's Helen Worth after 25 years of filming together
David Platt actor Jack P Shepherd confessed he was left struggling to film his final Coronation Street scenes with Helen Worth, who bows out of the ITV soap as Gail Platt later this month.
Jack told The Mirror that when the day came to film Helen’s final episode, he was left so emotional he “couldn’t do it”. He was forced to ditch the read-through and the usual rehearsals, telling the director he had only one go at the scenes in him.
David will feature in tear-jerking scenes on Christmas Day as he, along with siblings Sarah and Nick, will feature in special scenes as Gail says goodbye. All three of her children will get their own moment with Gail, as she says farewell to her children before she leaves for good.
Jack found his heart-wrenching scene with Helen too much, and wasn’t able to practice. The show normally re-films scenes from different camera angles too, but Jack told the director he might only have one shot at it, so to get what he needed in that moment.
He told us: “We all had our own emotional scenes with her, separately. I think there’s this thing where she comes to each of us separately and basically gives us a goodbye. Even in the rehearsals, I couldn’t really run it. I couldn’t really do it.
“I’ve only got one go at it. I’ve only got one take. I knew there’d be tears and there wouldn’t be anything else left. I told the director John Anderson, ‘I can’t do it.’
David Platt actor Jack P Shepherd confessed he was left struggling to film his final Coronation Street scenes with Helen Worth (
ITV)
“I went, ‘Are you doing the close shots first?’ and he said we’d do the close shots. I said, ‘I’ll do the close ones. Get Helen and me, and then we can do wides and everything. But if we’re gonna do it, because it’s me saying goodbye to Helen, it’s Helen saying goodbye to me after 25 years, I’m only probably going to have one in me’.
“Helen was worried about getting the lines right. And I was like, it doesn’t matter, does it? Just say whatever you want. She’s saying goodbye, you know. So, yeah, we did it and it’s really good.”
The actor, who has played the character since 2000, also made some last-minute changes to Helen’s last scene to be filmed. Jack explained: ” Her last scene filming was a scene with me and Julia. It was in the Platts.
“That was her last scene, and I went, no, no, her last scene has to be all of us. We all have to be there. They said there wasn’t one where you’re all together, and so I went, ‘well f***ing write it! Write it! You know, you can.’
“So they went, yeah, we can, and they did. They wrote one. [I just wanted to] make sure we’re all together in the Platts when she finally goes. Don’t just have someone random with her or whatever. So they did. And luckily, they were able to do it and schedule it.”