Former Hollyoaks star Emmett J Scanlan admitted it’s been

a struggle ‘getting work’ after leaving the soap.

The Irish actor, who played Brendan Brady,has starred in a number of hit series’

including The Fall and Gangs of London in recent years, before moving onto

his latest role in The Tower, where he will portrayed DI Kieran Shaw.

Before Peaky Blinders, Emmett also took on the challenge of Dublin crime thriller Kin.

Despite Emmett’s impressive roster, he opened up about the setbacks he experienced following his Holloyaks stint.

Speaking to the Under The Surface Podcast about he recalled: ‘I hit my own, professional and personal rock bottom for an 18 month period where I lost all confidence in myself, and I lost my was and I kept things to myself because I didn’t want to be a burden to other people.

‘I remember one particular period where I sat on my own in my living room, and I watched the clock tick until the sun disappeared.’

Addressing how hard it was to land other roles, he added: ‘And I’d lost. I’d lost my mojo. I’d lost my ability, my confidence in myself. And I got lower and lower and lower.’

Emmett has since appeared in Derry Girls, The Tower, and most recently Argylle.

It was recently confirmed that  Hollyoaks will reduce the number of episodes it airs a week from five to three this September, a number of cast and crew have left the show.

Instead of the traditional autumn stunt, which viewers had thought might be used to kill off a number of characters, Hollyoaks will instead jump forward a year time when the new structure comes into play.

Following the time-jump, characters that fans have said goodbye to will no longer be in the village.

‘When we started talking about the move to three episodes a week, we realised we needed a mechanism through which to transition our stories and characters and we kept coming back to this one,’ said Executive Producer Hannah Cheers.

‘It’s bold, daring and is a first for a UK soap; it sums Hollyoaks up perfectly.

‘The new three episode pattern offers us a different model of storytelling, which means we’ll see characters on screen for much longer. Our viewers are really smart; in order to serve them well we need to kick off this new structure in a meaningful way.

‘Fast-forwarding the show permanently by a year presents us with unlimited story possibilities. We are now a streaming-first soap and can lean into less-restricting and conventional structures’

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