Hollyoaks star Gregory Finnegan has addressed the possibility that James Nightingale is alive following a twist in the latest episode – and sadly it’s not good news.
James, as viewers know, was controversially killed off during the Channel 4 soap’s stunt week, going up in flames shortly after reuniting with beau Ste Hay (Kieron Richardson) and finding out that he did not have a brain tumour.
Gregory, a staple of the long-running drama for almost a decade, subsequently addressed his departure, confirming to Metro that he was one of the casualties of the casting cuts, meaning that the decision to leave was not his.
The actor told ua that he thought his character, one of the show’s most popular, had ‘more to give’.
‘I certainly didn’t want to be killed off,’ he told us. ‘I went into a meeting where lots of people had lost their jobs. There were certainly some high-profile casualties and I think I was probably one of those. It was just really sad because the Nightingale family was completely decimated and I was the last man standing.
‘I wasn’t surprised. I could see what they were going for. To an extent they want a high-profile casualty that hooks people into coming back for their three episode offering. I’m a realist and I understand in this case I was the sacrificial lamb for that.’
James’ departure left fans devastated. The character’s husband Ste – who was in the same vehicle – somehow managed to make it out of the blast physically unscathed, and – after a time jump into the future – he woke from a coma to find his life completely turned upside down.
Ste now believes that James is alive – seeing what he believes to be his husband everywhere he goes.
It’s largely believed that he’s struggling with grief and therefore his mind is playing tricks on him but things took quite a turn in Wednesday’s (October 16) offering of the serial, with Rex Gallagher (Jonny Labey) – who has been by Ste’s side since the blaze – making quite a confusing phone call.
‘As far as Ste is concerned, James Nightingale is dead and buried, so why tell him any different?’ he said to an unknown caller.
Ste was listening in to said phone call and came to believe that this is confirmation that James is still alive. He wasn’t the only one to believe such a thing, with fans now desperately hoping that James is, in fact, still alive and thus will return in the future.
‘Wait………did Rex just say James was alive???,’ wrote one excited fan on X, formerly known as Twitter. Social media user Angel was similarly shocked: ‘There’s no way!? James can’t be alive can he!? Now that would be a plot twist!
Despite the twist, however, it seems that James is not coming back, with star Gregory confirming such a thing on his Instagram Stories after excited fans reached out asking for more information.
‘From the amount of messages I’ve got in the past 24hrs something appears to be happening on Hollyoaks’, he wrote. ‘It’s news to me.’
No, you’re crying
Greg wrote a book, The World According To Grog, which details his time on the Hollyoaks – including his axing and departure.
‘It did [help me come to terms with the exit] because you keep going back to it,’ he told us. ‘I’d written a large part of the book long before I found out about this.
‘I’d written it with a view to some unknown date in the future but I didn’t really have an ending and you kind of need an ending for these kind of things, where you start a journey and get some kind of closure.’
Hollyoaks streams Mondays to Wednesdays from 7am on Channel 4’s streaming platform, or catch episodes on TV at 7pm on E4.
