Brennan: Wedding plot adds depth

Hollyoaks star PJ Brennan reckons the sham wedding storyline between Doug Carter and Ste Hay makes their relationship "more real".

Ste (Kieron Richardson) issues an ultimatum this week as Doug prepares to tie the knot with his flatmate Leanne Holiday (Jessica Forrest) in a bid to get hold of wedding inheritance from his parents.

PJ, who plays Doug, revealed: "What I enjoyed about it is it's not as cookie cutter and clean cut. We get a lot of people using the term 'cute' to describe Ste and Doug a lot and this kind of dirties it up a bit and makes it more real."

The Brooklyn-born actor added: "Ste's ultimatum is basically that it can't go on any further, if this is a lie that you're willing to maintain for the rest of your life, there are factors to it that need to be dealt with. Ste just kind of says, 'This is it, you've got to do this or it's over.'

"The dilemma that Doug has is he wants to prove a point that if his parents weren't going to give him money because he's gay, that's wrong. But then as a result of all the time they've spent together, he's really come for the first time to enjoy feeling accepted and loved and appreciated by his parents...

"Doug is a short-term sort of a person, and so the immediate gratification of having his parents around, loving him and giving him attention is, in an immature way, more important to him than the long run."

PJ said the wedding scenes were "surreal" to film.

"I used to live with Jess as well, we're very, very good friends. So if I was going to fake marry anyone it would be Jess!"