James Burrows' character on Coronation Street, Dr Ali, has had an emotional storyline in the popular show this week after being involved in his brother Ryan's feud with Ronan, which ended in a shocking car crash. The actor sat down with HELLO! to discuss the character, and revealed that he occasionally struggles to switch off following the emotional scenes.
James spoke about filming emotional Corrie scenes
Speaking about channelling emotion for the character, he explained: "I think of sad things that have happened to me in my life, I lost a few friends when I was younger and I think I always go back to those moments if I really have to cry, I just think about real life events, that's where I get it." He admitted that the scenes are "emotionally draining" and that after filming he can feel depressed. "It's hard if you've been filming for 12 hours and you've been crying your eyes out all day," he said. "You come off set and you feel very emotionally drained and sometimes you come out of working in a bit of a bad mood really, so it's quite hard. I think if you're doing emotional scenes for a period of a month or two and almost get slightly depressed because it really brings you down, you've got to be in that mind set for it."
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The actor does have ways of switching off from his character, and he revealed some of the ways he cheered himself after a difficult day on set, saying: "[I] call my girlfriend to have her try and cheer me up or go to the gym or go and do some wakeboarding, something fun and we have a laugh off set so that's good."
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