Laura Norton will soon be back on our screens again as her character Kerry Wyatt arrives back in Emmerdale – complete with police escort!
Never far from trouble, Kerry has been removed from the cruise ship she was working on after accusations that she was stealing.
Kerry joined the cruise when she left the village in 2022 following the death of Al Chapman (Michael Wildman) and the discovery that the man she hoped to marry was actually in love with Chas Dingle (Lucy Pargeter).
In real life, Laura was on maternity leave and she and her partner Mark Jordon (who played Emmerdale’s Daz Spencer) welcomed ‘tiny little bundle of joy and beauty’ Ronnie in October 2022, a sister for brother Jesse. Both Jesse and Ronnie have a condition called Usher Syndrome and Mark and Laura are very involved in raising awareness of the condition.
Laura told us that Emmerdale had made it easy for her to return to work.
‘I think I’m in my third week and they’ve eased me back in very gently,’ she told us.
‘I don’t know if it was deliberate, but I’ve had, one day a week, I’ve done two days a week, now I’m doing three. So I feel like they’ve given me a nice opportunity to settle in.’
Like any parent dealing with a return to work, Laura found that she initially worried about how her children were getting on without her.
‘I had my first couple of days where I’m constantly checking my phone just to see how the kids are and if they’ve had a nap,’ she admitted. ‘I’m starting slowly to just go, “Everything’s fine.” I’ve come home and they’re very happy and very well rested and well fed. Now I can just be present and do a good job – that’s where I’m up to now.’
Getting back into the character of Kerry was the next challenge, but Laura didn’t find that a problem.
‘Every department made it very easy for me, the script, the story, the writing and then the costume, and the wig,’ the actress recalled.
‘As soon as you put her clothes on, it’s just like, “Ah, there she is.” And I think having such a long period of time off, because I did have a year and a half, but I had the year when I’d come back after my maternity with Jesse – I’d had a year and a half off with him. So all in total, it feels like that year was so quick, and I’ve had a long time off work.
‘I was worried that I couldn’t do it anymore. You start going, “Can I walk and talk at the same time? Can I still act?” But I felt very blessed when I opened the script and realised how she was coming back and it did make it very easy. The lines are brilliant and the costumes are ridiculously horrendous.’
When asked whether she’d kept up with Emmerdale storylines while she was away, Laura pointed out that being a mum often got in the way.
‘The honest answer is bits and bobs just because the time of day that it’s on is bath, bed and you do all that and then you just stare at the floor for about half an hour,’ she explained, adding, ‘Probably you’d be better off jogging my memory to be honest because I have severe baby brain as well!’
