ITV Coronation Street actor reveals what’s next for Joel Deering after killer reveal

Coronation Street finally revealed Lauren Bolton’s killer on Thursday night in a harrowing flashback and actor Calum Lill has now broke his silence on the twist.

Only recently, Roy Cropper has found himself wrongly arrested, charged and the number one suspect for the supposed murder of missing teenager Lauren. Soap fans will recall that troubled youngster Lauren abruptly left the cobbles earlier this year and her friend Bobby has been left concerned after he found her flat unlocked with Lauren nowhere to be seen.

Viewers never saw Lauren leave and it seems she told no one close to her of her plan to leave Weatherfield aside from Roy. Bobby reported Lauren as missing to the police and Roy has found himself under suspicion due to his kind nature, especially after he was caught innocently cleaning Lauren’s flat, which some people thought proved he was guilty and internet sleuths have since made his life a misery with a barrage of online abuse.

On Thursday’s episode, DS Lisa Swain and newcomer Kit thought they had cracked the case as they arrested abuser Nathan Curtis, who previously made Bethany Platt’s life a living misery and was recently released from prison. As they interrogated Nathan in the prison cell with Joel Deering acting as his solicitor, a graphic flashback played as it looked like it was Nathan but later in the episode it was revealed in a shock twist that Joel was in fact Lauren’s killer.

Speaking out on the huge reveal, Joel actor Calum Lill has revealed he’s known about the storyline for a year and teased what’s next for his character. Calum said of Thursday’s cliffhanger: “I’m terrified but it’s also a relief. I’ve known this for over a year. It was last May that I got sent the breakdown for Joel saying that he was a charming character who’s got a dark side. When I got the screen test they said, ‘Okay, this is what Joel is going to be doing’. I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, like this is a really terrible person. And I’ve got to hide in plain sight for a year.’”

Talking about what is next for Joel, Calum said: “I think he’s trying to work out how many loose ends there could be and how to deal with them. Obviously as a defence solicitor he knows how to play the game and knows that there is reasonable doubt and that he needs to cancel out anything that could be tied down to him. But you know, this is new territory for him. He might have been in a situation before where he’s broken the law and not treated people very nicely. But this is new and I think he feels real concern. He has to make it stick on Nathan so no one ever suspects it could be Joel.”

Teasing whether Joel could make a mistake, he added: “I mean, the longer he hides the more chance there is of him making a mistake. He’s been good so far in that he’s been engaging in this behaviour as long as we have seen him, and Lauren was attacked in February. And no one’s seen him. No one’s caught him out until now but they don’t actually know they have caught him out. But I think the longer it goes on for, the more chance he’s got of slipping up and I think he knows that.

You can see that in him getting more and more anxious that the slightest thing could bring his world crumbling down around him, you know, even just the fact that he slept with Lauren. That’s a breach of trust alone and will be enough to end his career and relationship plus murder on top of that, his life would be over you know. Everything that he values in his life, his job, his fiance, his freedom? So the stakes couldn’t be higher. But when he panics, the more chance there is of something going wrong.”

The actor added that he hopes it’ll be a while until Joel is caught, saying: “I hope Joel’s very good at hiding because I really enjoy coming to work, but for soap justice I know that at some point he’s going to be found out!”