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"Waterloo Road&amp;#039;s Christine Mulgrew takes centre stage in this week&amp;#039;s episode as her ex-husband Joe makes a shock arrival. Joe (Derek Riddell) renews contact with Christine to talk about his father&amp;#039;s will, but his presence sends the troubled English teacher into a spin with big consequences. When Joe shows an interest in getting to know his son, Christine falls off the wagon in spectacular fashion - fearing she could lose Connor forever. Digital Spy recently caught up with Laurie Brett, who plays Christine, to hear more about the storyline. You&amp;#039;ve gone from one big TV show to another by moving from EastEnders to Waterloo Road. How have you found the experience? &amp;quot;Christine was just such a gift of a part to be offered, especially so quickly after playing Jane Beale for so long. Jane was a very loved character, so it was great to be given the chance to play Christine, who is such a different woman. I always saw Jane as an &amp;#039;every woman&amp;#039; character - she worked hard, she had a good heart and she was normal most of the time, although with a lot of madness around. &amp;quot;On Waterloo Road, though, Christine is the madness! I remember my agent saying, &amp;#039;You can&amp;#039;t not play Christine, because it&amp;#039;s just such a brilliant part&amp;#039;. I just feel really lucky that the role happened to be out there when I left EastEnders. The transition from Jane to Christine has been great, and I&amp;#039;m very lucky to go from one to another in such a quick timeframe.&amp;quot; What kind of a reaction have you seen to Christine? &amp;quot;I was initially quite concerned about what the reaction would be. When I was playing Jane, everybody who stopped me in the street was so lovely and nice, because they liked her. But when I started filming Waterloo Road, there were a couple of times where I wondered whether I&amp;#039;d be hated and loathed, especially in the first ten episodes when Christine was drinking all the time and was so vile to her son. &amp;quot;But I did a lot of work on Christine. She is a nasty drunk, but she&amp;#039;s also a damaged woman and I worked very hard to bring out some vulnerability in her. People have loved her, and I think they&amp;#039;ve even loved her when she&amp;#039;s been a bit drunk, loud and nasty. I was really surprised at the response - pleasantly so! I see a lot of people saying, &amp;#039;I don&amp;#039;t know who I feel more sorry for - Connor or Christine?&amp;#039; That&amp;#039;s exactly what we were aiming for.&amp;quot;  Did you do much research into the alcoholism storyline, or did you leave that to the writers? &amp;quot;A lot of it I left to the writers, because they&amp;#039;ve written brilliantly for Christine. I think they&amp;#039;ve worked really hard on the complexity of the character. The role was always planned to be that way even before I joined, so a lot of it was in the writing.  &amp;quot;I did feel a responsibility to do quite a bit of research on alcoholism, but a lot of it is also instinctive - it&amp;#039;s acting and you&amp;#039;ve got to go with what you&amp;#039;re given in the script. We&amp;#039;ve all seen people drunk and you can draw on that. Also, after watching Steve McFadden and Linda Henry do drunk scenes so well on EastEnders for so long, I stole lots of things from those two!&amp;quot; How does Christine react when her ex-husband Joe arrives this week? &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a huge shock to her! I don&amp;#039;t even know if there&amp;#039;s a word big enough to describe what this means for Christine. She hasn&amp;#039;t seen Joe since she was pregnant, but she really loved him. She never expected him to come into her life ever. Now that he has, it&amp;#039;s her worst nightmare - she&amp;#039;s confronted by everything she tried to forget. It&amp;#039;s also just when she was on the up, so it couldn&amp;#039;t have happened at a worse time.&amp;quot; Why is Joe back? &amp;quot;Joe is back because his father has died, and Christine has been gifted half of a farmhouse in the will. Joe has come back to ask her to sign the farmhouse over to him. He hasn&amp;#039;t come back to see Connor or Christine, he&amp;#039;s come back to get what he thinks is rightfully his. It&amp;#039;s the only reason he&amp;#039;s returned.  &amp;quot;Even knowing that cuts like a knife for Christine. There&amp;#039;s a small part of her that wishes Joe genuinely wanted to see her, but that&amp;#039;s not the case - it&amp;#039;s purely business.&amp;quot;  Pictured: Christine and Joe. How does Connor feel about Joe being back? &amp;quot;At first Connor doesn&amp;#039;t know that Joe is his father, but Christine has to tell him what&amp;#039;s going on, because Joe suddenly says that he wants to see the boy. He may have an ulterior motive, but Christine fears that she might lose Connor forever\u2026&amp;quot; Did this episode present a good opportunity for you to explore Christine&amp;#039;s past? &amp;quot;Definitely. I&amp;#039;d known all along that things in her past had triggered her problems, but then when I got to know what it was, I was really excited to play it. I was also thrilled that Derek Riddell was coming in to play Joe, because he&amp;#039;s such a lovely actor. I knew the scenes would be great with Derek and that he&amp;#039;d be easy to work with.  &amp;quot;I think we&amp;#039;d reached a point in the series where it was time for the public to understand Christine a little bit more. They&amp;#039;d accepted her and loved to hate her, but it was time for them to feel for her and get to know the real reasons why she&amp;#039;s so unhappy and damaged. It was a great episode and a great opportunity.  &amp;quot;It should hopefully be moving to watch, as we see Christine really break down in this episode. It was really, really hard work to get it right - but very enjoyable.&amp;quot; What is Shane O&amp;#039;Meara, who plays Connor, like to work with? &amp;quot;Shane&amp;#039;s lovely! He&amp;#039;s such a sweetheart and we clicked straight away. We rehearsed a little bit together before we started filming, and he&amp;#039;s just a lovely young man who&amp;#039;s eager to learn - he wants to get better and better all the time.  &amp;quot;Shane is also so unaware that he&amp;#039;s gorgeous - it&amp;#039;s absolutely endearing. I remember the first time I saw him, I just said, &amp;#039;Oh my God mate, you&amp;#039;re going to get so much attention!&amp;#039; I think he looks like a young John Travolta on screen sometimes. I love him like a real son, I really do. I&amp;#039;m sure he&amp;#039;ll go on and do some great things.&amp;quot;  Pictured: Connor and Joe. Do Shane and the other younger cast members approach you for advice? &amp;quot;They do come to me for advice, and sometimes I just give it to them whether they want it or not! (Laughs.) I was very fortunate all along my career, as I&amp;#039;ve worked with really great actors and actresses who have given me pearls of wisdom and advice along the way. It&amp;#039;s nice for me to be able to do that for other actors who are coming up. I think you should pass on what you know and help others, as it&amp;#039;s a nice thing to do.&amp;quot; Would you consider returning to EastEnders, or do you feel like you&amp;#039;ve closed the door on Jane? &amp;quot;I would never say never to going back, as I loved playing Jane. She&amp;#039;s Bobby&amp;#039;s mum and it will always be that way. I think Jane is a character who could go back at some point in the future - it wouldn&amp;#039;t be implausible. I think Jane and Ian will always love each other, it just went so wrong and she&amp;#039;d had enough in the end!  &amp;quot;Jane will always have ties to the Square as she knows everyone there. It&amp;#039;s not out of the realms of possibility for the future, but at the moment I&amp;#039;m quite happy playing Christine. It all depends on timing and jobs and if they ever wanted me - they might be thinking &amp;#039;good riddance&amp;#039;!&amp;quot; We know you film Waterloo Road really far in advance, so are you covering any happier times for Christine at the moment? &amp;quot;What I&amp;#039;m filming at the moment is a very bittersweet ending to series eight. There&amp;#039;s some good things, and there&amp;#039;s some bad things! It&amp;#039;s not just the drinking that makes Christine the way she is - there&amp;#039;s a fireball in there either way. She&amp;#039;s never going to have an easy life!&amp;quot; &amp;gt; Read our spoiler for the next episode of &amp;#039;Waterloo Road&amp;#039; &amp;gt; Read more &amp;#039;Waterloo Road&amp;#039; spoilers and news Waterloo Road airs on Thursdays at 8pm on BBC One. New! Digital Spy Soap Scoop video - watch Amie Parker-Williams discuss the biggest storylines on the way in Coronation Street, EastEnders, Emmerdale and Hollyoaks.  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<http://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/waterloo-road/interviews/a453018/waterloo-road-laurie-brett-talks-shock-arrival-for-christine/>