Hollyoaks has addressed one of the most bizarre behind-the-scenes mysteries of the soap as Amy Barnes star Ashley Slanina-Davies discussed her character’s double death.
The soap star sat down for a chat with Ste Hay’s Kieron Richardson and Lucas Hay’s Oscar Curtis on the Hollyoaks Unwrapped podcast.
Looking back on Amy’s exit, Richardson reminded fans that Slanina-Davies’s character was at the centre of a big whodunit in 2017.
Years before that, however, Amy was meant to meet her maker in a very different way as her exit was first announced in 2010.
Slanina-Davies even filmed Amy’s death scenes as part of an explosion at Il Gnosh that also claimed the life of Stephanie Dean.
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Producers then changed their mind last minute and asked Slanina-Davies back, reshooting her scenes.
On the podcast, Slanina-Davies confirmed her character was initially supposed to die of “smoke inhalation”.
“I don’t even know if I’m allowed to say this,” she said, revealing she got a call from producers asking her for “reshoots” in a very quick turn of events.
“It was around November time. Anyway, this phone call came at the end of October,” she said.
Richardson commented it was a “really short turnaround to change the storyline completely”.
“They rescheduled the week doing like, a flash-forward flashback,” Slanina-Davies added, explaining how producers managed to keep the explosion scenes that didn’t feature her character.
“So effectively, the scenes that weren’t going to get changed were showed, and the other scenes were being reshot and stitched together and then sent down to Channel 4 for approval and then released.”
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Amy got on to stay in Chester until 2017, when she was killed by Ryan Knight in a huge murder mystery for the soap.
Fans may remember that Amy’s unused death scene could be found on YouTube after being leaked. While some viewers believed it to be a red herring to throw fans off track, it was actually the initial scene of Amy being involved in the fire.
Hollyoaks airs on Mondays-Wednesdays with its Channel 4 streaming premiere at 7am, then an E4 broadcast the same night at 7pm. Full episodes are also released on YouTube a week after their Channel 4 release.
Selected omnibus episodes are available via Prime Video.
Read more Hollyoaks spoilers on our dedicated homepage
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