‘Maxine can come back from this’
Redemption may be on the cards for Ms Minniver
Poor Maxine has been through the mill over the years – from being abused by her husband to having the love of her life murdered by his corrupt father – but she hasn’t made life easy for herself recently. Her big day, shockingly, goes without a hitch, but as Levi and now Sienna know she’s been lying about being ill, it’s only a matter of time before the truth comes out and Damon realises he’s married a fraud. Hollyoaks legend Nikki Sanderson reveals all…
You’ve had some brilliant storylines over the years, but this one is huge, isn’t it?
Yeah. Do you know what? It’s probably been one of the hardest ones because we’ve done domestic abuse, and people know about domestic abuse, but not a lot of people know what Munchausen’s syndrome [where someone pretends to be ill or deliberately produces symptoms of illness in themselves] is.
When you first heard about this storyline, what did you think about it?
I was excited to do it because I had heard of Munchausen’s and Munchausen by proxy, and I thought, “Wow, that’s something that hasn’t been done.”
Have you had people shouting at you in the street?
No, not really.
What about remarks online?
Oh yeah, there have been comments. It’s just people hating Maxine, saying, “Get her out!”
Is it hard going from being such a lovable character to one of the most hated?
I think it’s fantastic because Maxine was such a lovable character and everybody really did root for her. So, to have her doing these types of things and completely changing the audience’s perception of her is really good, because then you know that eventually, there has to be some kind of redemption. She has to come back from this. It’s great for me as an actress to be able to do different things and switch it up a bit.
She’s managed to get Damon down the aisle without her secret coming out. Is she able to enjoy married life at all?
No, because she’s pretending to be at death’s door. She can’t just drop that façade as soon as she’s married and be like, “Right, cool, let’s just enjoy ourselves.” She has to keep it up.
Do things get more intense?
Yeah, because the deeper she gets into this and the bigger the lies become, the further she has to fall essentially. She’s building herself up, and now the only way is down, so it’s not going to be great for her , or for everyone around her, either. Everybody, apart from Sienna, thinks that she’s dying, which is heartbreaking for them. They’re devastated.
Do you think Maxine is ever really going to be able to come back from this?
I would say that she can, because she has something wrong with her. She’s been manipulated by her own mind, so she’s manipulating people around her. There is a chance for her to be redeemed, because people have to remember that there’s a real issue with her. She is genuinely really poorly – she actually is ill. ■
‘She is genuinely really poorly’