Emmerdale’s Viv Hope star addresses wanting to leave soap sooner ‘Not much I could gain’

ITV executives believed Deena Payne’s tenure on the Emmerdale soap opera was up when her beloved character Viv Hope sadly perished in the Post Office explosion in 2011.

Deena stated she believed her character on the Yorkshire-based soap opera should have only lasted two or three years during an interview on Distinct Nostalgia – More Than A Podcast.

Deena revealed the following when asked by podcast presenter Ashley Byrne about the influence Emmerdale had on her life: “If I hadn’t been a mother, I believe I would have opted not to stay in it for so long.

“I thought there wasn’t much more I could do for my career after two or three years.

But I am not someone who is career-minded; I am a people person, and I believe that I would rather pursue things that make me happy and that I want to accomplish.

She described how she spent a year traveling around Australia on a backpacking trip, saying, “There’s no way I would have traveled if I genuinely wanted to get into the next West End production.

But I wasn’t going to stay because my boyfriend left, so I decided to go as well.

Later, she claimed that her son William Anthony Payne Grant was responsible for her good fortune and that she had provided for his upbringing and schooling with the earnings from Emmerdale.

We now live in a wonderful place, so I just feel like I used acting as much as I could in every manner, said Deena.

We always saw ourselves in a nice home, but I never imagined myself in Yorkshire.

The 67-year-old actress is a native of Kent’s Orpington.

Because all of my relatives is in the south, she said, “I never thought Yorkshire would be a place that I would appreciate.”

She admitted that despite loving her life in the north of England, her son didn’t get to see his grandparents too often.

She tragically revealed: “My dad passed away suddenly two weeks before I was scheduled to take a year off to be near my mother and father.

Everyone at Emmerdale was wonderful, and they really supported me during that.

She was thankful she could be close to her mother to support her through it even if it was a challenging period in her life.

She continued by saying how much her family has always supported her acting profession.

They have helped me in whatever I have done, she continued. I’ve performed in musicals on the West End and on TV programs like The Bill.

The actress, who is best known for her legendary Emmerdale role, was generally at ease with the celebrity the serial afforded her.

She did, however, acknowledge that “sometimes, whether I was on vacation or elsewhere, people were unduly intrusive.

The fame occasionally caused me some anxiety, but overall it wasn’t a problem.