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"Neighbours newcomer Erin Mullally has admitted that he was &amp;quot;shocked&amp;quot; when he learned that producers wanted to cast him as Declan Napier. The 20-year-old was asked to take over the role at the beginning of the year after existing Declan actor James Sorensen decided to bow out for a new career in the army. Speaking about the recast for the first time, Mullally told TV Week: &amp;quot;I was a little shocked, to be honest. When I went to the audition, I wasn&amp;#039;t told anything about the role I was going for. It was all top secret.  &amp;quot;So when I found out, there was an initial feeling of, &amp;#039;I don&amp;#039;t know if I can pull this off&amp;#039;. I was completely overwhelmed. What an amazing way to start my career! I&amp;#039;m living the dream of thousands of actors.&amp;quot; Mullally confirmed that he watched &amp;quot;hours and hours&amp;quot; of episodes to research Declan&amp;#039;s history before filming his first scenes. On whether fans will grow to like his version of the character, he commented: &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m sure that initially people will be quite confronted by a new face with the same character name - I&amp;#039;m not fooling myself about that. But hopefully people will come to accept it.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/neighbours/news/a216856/neighbours-new-declan-breaks-silence/>