I might stay as long as William Roache
Last updated 10:10, Saturday, 05 April 2008
You get the impression that Jack P Shepherd enjoys playing sinister David Platt in Coronation Street. Although he insists he’s nothing like his soap alter-ego (well he would, wouldn’t he?) he answers his phone with a dramatically spooky “Heeellloooo”.
“I like to make an entrance,” the 20-year-old says.
He certainly does. Jack joined the hallowed cobbles of Coronation Street back in 2000 when he was an 11-year-old whippersnapper. But it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that we saw the real David Platt, a manipulative, messed-up young man.
Jack thinks David’s tough childhood explains why he’s turned out such a wrong ’un.
“During the Richard Hillman time and everything that he went through there, he was at that tender age where he wasn’t yet a teenager,” he says. “Sarah was beyond that age – she was thinking about lads and all that stuff so she could easily forget about it – and Beth was too young to remember.
“But David seemed to be at that perfect age where it could really affect him mentally. And obviously it has!”
It took a few years for the true consequences of the Hillman episode to reveal themselves in David, and it was Jack himself who decided he wanted to play David as a bit darker than your average teenager.
“The good thing with Corrie is that they give you loads of freedom,” Jack explains. “They’ll give you a script with lines on and you say it however you want.
“There was this one scene where I decided to do it differently where I was having an argument with Gail about Richard Hillman and why we never talked about it. My mum was my drama coach and we both decided that I didn’t want to run upstairs and slam my door, because I’d done all that and I couldn’t be bothered anymore.
"So I thought, ‘Why don’t I do it in an evil, menacing, sinister type of way, lower my eyes and really hit it home to her that I do blame her for Richard Hillman?’ So I did, and it completely changed the way the producers saw David.”
So it’s all down to Jack that David is such a brilliant soap villain?
“I don’t want to take all the praise, but yeah!” he says, with a chuckle. “No, most of the credit has to go to the writers and the producers who have thought up brilliant storylines for him, because I haven’t had any influence on those whatsoever. I have to take my little hat off to them.”
From faking his own suicide on the day of his sister’s wedding to trying to blackmail Tracey Barlow, David has certainly got up to some dastardly deeds over the past couple of years. But even Jack was surprised when he first found out about his latest storyline, in which David pushed his mum down the stairs, and promptly lied through his teeth about it.
He says he managed to wheedle the plot out of producer Steve Frost several months ago at an awards bash, and couldn’t believe what he was told.
“We’d had a few drinks and I was basically asking what was coming up next – it’s the best time to get him like that! I get him in a corner and said, ‘Here Steve, have a drink, have cocktail, it’s on me,’ and then said; ‘So, what’s happening?’ and he goes, ‘Well Jack...’
“So he told me that I push Gail down the stairs and she ends up in a wheelchair. I said, ‘Come off it!’. I thought he was winding me up until it ended up in the scripts and he said, ‘See I told you so!”’
This week, after Gail has put two and two together and worked out that David was responsible for her fall, he does feel really guilty.
“He felt remorse as soon as he pushed her down the stairs, but at the same time, he would really love to get away with it,” Jack laughs. “He can’t let his mum find out because she’ll hate him for the rest of his life. David panics, but he finally comes to terms with the fact he’s going to have to come clean. He tells Gail he did it so he can get punished.”
He asks his mum to phone the police and tell them what he has done, but Gail refuses.
Full of self-loathing, David becomes determined to pay for his crimes, so picks up some of Kevin’s tools and goes on a rampage in the street, smashing up cars, shop windows and anything else he can see. When the police arrive and arrest him, it looks like David could be sent to jail – but how does Jack think he’d cope?
“I think he’d be somebody’s girlfriend if you know what I mean,” he chuckles. “He’s got a pretty mouth!”
It’s been another huge year for Jack. He’s been nominated for a second year running at The British Soap Awards for Best Actor and Best Villain.
“I was up for the same two last year and I didn’t get anything – not that I’m bitter at all. You could probably tell from my reaction I wasn’t bitter, when I was shaking my fist at the camera. But it would be nice to come away with something.”
Jack has seen many co-stars come and go from the Street, most recently his on-screen sister Tina O’Brien, a.k.a. Sarah-Lou. He says he understands how difficult it is for a soap star to be accepted as an actor in another show, and thinks that critics give them a hard time.
“When you come out of a soap and go into different programmes people think, ‘he’s just doing the same character’. But he isn’t, he’s just been in that soap for so long that you’ve seen every range of acting that that person can possibly do. So it’s very, very difficult to go and try and do a completely different character, unless you’re female and turn male!”
Does that mean he’ll be staying put in Weatherfield for as long as William Roache who plays Ken Barlow?
“I don’t know, to tell you the truth,” he says. “I’ve really enjoyed myself for the past couple of years here at Corrie. If that continues, if I’m still up there and enjoying life, then yes, why not?”
