Being Mandy was suffocating... I couldn’t deal with fame but I’ve learned to love myself and know she won’t take over my life again
AS BOLSHY Mandy Dingle, Emmerdale’s tart with a heart, she epitomised girl power and was one of telly’s most popular characters in the 90s.
Yet in real life, Lisa Riley was a frightened, confused girl, crippled with anxiety and panic attacks as she struggled to cope with fame.
The more we loved Mandy, the further Lisa sank into depression and self-destruction – so much so, she knew she had to leave Emmerdale and Mandy behind for the sake of her health and sanity.
“I found it suffocating,” said Lisa. “It was a hard time for me, terrible. I couldn’t deal with fame, I couldn’t cope with it.
“I had the most chronic anxiety and panic attacks, I just couldn’t come up for air.”
But 17 years on, Lisa has made the brave decision to return to the role – and she feels she has the life experience and mental strength to believe in herself.
Bury-born Lisa was 17 when she landed the role of Mandy straight out of drama school. Emmerdale viewers loved her immediately and at first Lisa, now 42, thought it was her dream come true – but it turned into a nightmare.
She said: “I was just a kid. All my girlfriends were learning life at university and I was also living away from home for the first time but I was on TV. I don’t recognise the person I was during my last 19 months on Emmerdale. I had to leave – I would’ve gone crazy. I was out partying a lot and I just had this horrendous anxiety.
“It was like Lisa didn’t exist because I was just Mandy for so much of every day and everywhere I went, people just wanted Mandy.
“If I was in a restaurant and I wasn’t like that, you could see disappointment on faces. Then naively, I thought I had to be Mandy to keep people happy. Now I am so much older and wiser I realise I don’t have to do that.
“But when you’re young and you go into a soap and you think people want that, it creates a whole self-loathing thing. I started to think, ‘Who am I?’
“Mandy became everything. On
Fridays, I would finish work and go and do two club appearances dressed in leopard print. People wanted crazy Mandy. They didn’t want timid Lisa.
“That is how popular she was. But I didn’t see it as testament to me as an actress, I saw it is a failure as a person.
“It was as if Mandy was this huge success and Lisa wasn’t. I had to prove to myself Lisa was good enough.”
And she has. Lisa has since hosted You’ve Been Framed, starred in Fat Friends, wowed on Strictly, been a regular Loose Women panellist and starred in BAFTA-winner Three Girls.
And she shed 12 stone, dropping from a size 28 dress to a 12-14.
After a string of disastrous relationships, Lisa has also found love and is engaged to musician partner Al. She has been commuting to Leeds from their London home to film Emmerdale, alongside old friend Mark Charnock, who plays Marlon. She says she and Al are used to a long-distance relationship and he is thrilled for her.
As well as being comfortable in her own skin, Lisa seems to have found an inner peace she previously lacked.
“When I look what has happened over the past 17 years, it is insane,” she said. “I have lost my grandparents and my mum since then, had turmoil in relationships, everything I’ve done in my career. My life is like a soap opera.
“But I am lucky I have had a good career since Emmerdale and financially I am set up, so it is not that I am coming back for the money.
“It has taken 17 years to find Lisa, love Lisa and enjoy being me. Now I have learned to love myself, I can go back and play Mandy and know she isn’t going to take over again.”
It is an open secret Emmerdale bosses asked her back countless times but she always refused – so why has she relented this time?
Lisa said: “People have always asked when I am going back. Then someone asked why I wouldn’t. Now that was a different question to which I had no answer.”
When the soap’s makers got in touch again, Lisa decided to meet them – and was so blown away by the storylines that she decided to go for it.
Mandy returns unannounced in the New Year and walks into Marlon’s official wedding to Jessie. It throws the Dingle family into turmoil, with everyone questioning her motives.
She also has son Vinny, 16, in tow, leaving the village wondering who the dad is. While she is only returning for a few episodes, Lisa has not ruled out making things more permanent.
She said: “The door is very much open for Mandy to come back permanently, they have no intention of killing her off.”
In the meantime, she is loving being back at work with her old pals Mark and Dominic Brunt, who plays Paddy. “We have always kept in touch, they are my true friends and being back filming with them is amazing but we can’t stop giggling,” she added. “It is like coming home and I’m dumbfounded by the reaction. Someone said to me once you are in the jam jar of soap icons – people mention Mandy like they mention Bet Lynch and Peggy Mitchell. Wow.
“That is just a huge compliment but I have to credit the writers, they have always written brilliantly for Mandy.
“And we are in the world of girl power now. Emmerdale’s producers are all women. If you look back, Mandy was at the start of girl power – she was girl power before the Spice Girls.
“Women loved her, men loved her. She said what women were thinking but didn’t think they could get away with. She was body confident, enjoyed sex and didn’t care who knew it.
“I’ve always loved Mandy but I let her take over my life. This time around I’m the one in charge.”
Mandy was girl power before the Spice Girls LISA ON IMPACT HER SOAP CHARACTER HAD