"I'd love to be in a horror!"

Emmerdale star Samantha Giles talks to us about her secret ambitions - it's spellbinding!

- SUE CRAWFORD

She regularly leaves viewers screaming with laughter with her on-screen antics as ditzy Bernice Blackstock - one of Emmerdale's most comedic characters, but Samantha Giles reveals that one day she'd like to have audiences screaming for a different reason entirely - as the star of a scary horror film.

The actress explains, "I'd absolutely love to do a horror film. I narrowly missed out on one years ago, earlier in my career, which was a shame. My husband and I both enjoy watching well-crafted horror films, so it would be great to work in that genre.

"I like the classics, such as Rosemary's Baby, and The Exorcist was fantastic - I could still watch that now and think it was brilliant. I wouldn't mind what sort of character I played somebody very different to Bernice would be interesting - but I wouldn't want to die in the first 20 minutes!"

Samantha first joined Emmerdale in 1998. She stayed with the show for four years before leaving to spend three years as nurse Sally Boothe in Where The Heart Is. She returned to Emmerdale in 2012, departed again in 2019, then came back for a third stint in 2021.