Coronation Street star Ryan Prescott discusses response to acid attack storyline
Coronation Street spoilers follow.
Coronation Street star Ryan Prescott has opened up about the public response to his character Ryan Connor's acid attack storyline.
The character recently became a victim of Daisy Midgeley's stalker Justin Rutherford as the latter attempted to throw acid at her, Ryan stepping in instead and taking the force of the attack.
Upcoming scenes will see Ryan learn in hospital that his injuries aren't healing as they had hoped, and he will need a skin graft. This later leads to him to attempt to run away amid his trauma.
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Speaking about depicting the long process of Ryan's recovery on the soap, the actor explained that it is "one of the most important things to show in the storyline".
"Acid attack survivors can go through hundreds of operations, multiple skin grafts, years of facial reconstruction, a lifetime of trauma therapy and PTSD in trying to get to grips with certain factors, whether that be societal factors or identity factors," he said.
"Trauma has this impact on people; it’s always there and you are always carrying a part of it. Ryan is still in denial and will probably still be in denial for the next year ahead. It is a very long process and we want to show this.
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"Obviously in the parameters of soap you have to take into account the speed of the show, timings of things and how busy the show actually is, but one of the things that we wanted to be inclusive in the story is having a long term aftermath which shows the difficulties of going through something like this.
"The real road to recovery is the psychological road to recovery and that one never ends. And Ryan is starting to learn this."
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Speaking further about the reaction to the storyline, Ryan revealed that it has "been massively positive" and he has been "blown away".
"I hoped people would be affected by this storyline as these attacks happen all the time and the more successful the storyline is, the more people it reaches and the more chance we have of bringing these issues into the dialogue of society," he said.
"For example, we want this storyline to educate people on what to do if acid violence happens and how to behave and act around someone who has survived acid violence. Little things like that can change little things in people’s lives and that’s the reason why we do what we do in the first place.
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"Obviously when it comes to the internet, there are two sides to that coin, you always get a little bit of positive and a little bit of negative, and that’s what I expected to be honest, but we have had so much love from people and people have been really kind, especially about the acting and the quality of the story."
"On the whole, a lot of people have been saying that it’s a memorable episode, which is so nice to hear because you never really know how something is going to look when you put it together," Ryan added.
"Having this kind of feedback at this point, when it’s so early in the game, is overwhelming and I am really, really happy."
Coronation Street airs on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 8pm on ITV1 and streams on ITVX.
Read more Coronation Street spoilers on our dedicated homepage
Coronation Street has been working on Ryan's storyline with guidance from The Katie Piper Foundation and Acid Survivors Trust International (ASTI), which both offer help and support to real-life survivors.
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