‘The universe doesn’t want me married’
Her wedding plans may keep getting scuppered, but Emmerdale actress Laura Norton’s home life couldn’t be happier
When Emmerdale bosses offered Laura Norton the role of party-loving Kerry Wyatt, it couldn’t have come at a better time. “I’d been a jobbing actress for years, doing small bits of TV and theatre and I had to move back in with my mam and dad because I was skint,” Laura says. “Then, two months later, I got the call from Emmerdale for the audition.”
Fast forward nearly 10 years and Laura’s life could not be more different. After almost a decade at Emmerdale, she is now financially secure, she’s made a group of great friends and met her fiancé, former co-star Mark
Jordon, 56, who played
Daz Spencer.
In January she gave birth to a baby boy, Jesse, and earlier this month the trio moved to a new home in North Yorkshire.
Laura, 38 – now returning to work after a lengthy pandemic-enforced maternity leave – admits she’s still pleasantly surprised by how her life has turned out…
Hi, Laura. Were you nervous about returning to after 18 months away?
Emmerdale
My main fear was that I was going to find it really hard and miss Jesse too much. Because of Covid we weren’t really able to see anybody for the first four months of his life, so we spent a lot of time together. The first few weeks back at work were really difficult, but now I’m going, “Well,
I’ve going to earn a living and he’s really happy seeing me when I come back.” At the moment Mark is a full-time dad. I’m sure he’ll go away to work at some point too, so it’s something we’ll have to look into.
Presumably you have quite a few pictures of Jesse on your phone…
Are you joking? I’m one of those really annoying people who say, “Do you want to have a look at a picture of him?” And then somebody is stuck with me for half an hour. I’ve just had a message saying that my icloud is full. I’ve got 14,000
‘I’ve got 14,000 pictures on my phone. It’s not all Jesse – it’s my puppy as well’
pictures on my phone. But it’s not all Jesse – it’s my puppy as well.
A puppy and a baby sounds like quite the challenge!
We went into lockdown and I got a puppy and then two weeks after getting a puppy I found out I was pregnant. That was not something that we planned. They’ve both grown so quickly. The puppy is massive now and Jesse is a little cracker – he’s coming on in leaps and bounds.
Did you always want to be a mum?
I really did. I’m quite maternal, but then your life goes off in a direction you never thought it would. I was heading towards
40, I was with Mark who has already got two grown-up children and I just thought, “Maybe that ship has sailed – maybe that’s not for me.” So I was over the moon when it happened.
Why were you away from work for so long?
After the first lockdown the Emmerdale cast went back to work. I was due in too, but then four days before I was supposed to return I found out I was pregnant. It was such early days with Covid that they didn’t know how it would affect pregnant women, so work and my doctor didn’t want to risk it. When I eventually came back I was wondering, “Can I still act?”
How did Kerry leave Emmerdale? She was last on-screen mid-2020. We didn’t see her leave because it came to an abrupt end and I couldn’t go back. But it’s been mentioned that she went away to stay with a friend. She wanted to get over the fact that she made some terrible decisions and was responsible for somebody losing their life. She wanted to find inner peace.
How does she return?
She got a job as a cleaner/dogsbody for a family in a multimillion-pound mansion. She forms a bond with her employer’s daughter but, while the daughter, Chloe, is lovely, she realises that the father is dodgy. It’s really dark stuff and she starts to try to come up with ways to get away. There are a few interwoven storylines. This girl’s sister was an organ donor for Sarah Sugden. And then Charity Dingle turns up at the house to try to rob it. She sees Kerry there and says, “What the hell are you doing here?” Kerry forces Charity to hand over what she’s taken, but then Kerry gets a message from Chloe’s dad saying that one of his watches is missing.
Kerry is a car crash, but she’s not a bad person. She really wants to be a good mum to her daughter, Amy. She’s just not capable of it because she wasn’t shown any love herself, so she doesn’t know how.
You used to be a party girl – is that on the back burner now?
Oh God, yes. Even navigating having a shower is difficult enough. I’ll definitely be out and about again when I can, but at the moment every minute I’m not in work I just want to get back and see what Jesse is doing.
What’s left on your bucket list?
Me and Mark have talked about going on a road trip to America when Jesse is a bit older. We want to go and have a massive adventure and for him to see the world, because there are so many things we haven’t done that we wish we had.
You’ve been engaged for a few years – do you have plans to tie
the knot?
The universe just doesn’t want us to get married! Things keep happening that stop us doing it. There was Covid, then we had a baby and we’ve just moved house so we’re kneedeep in boxes. We’ve got to get through that first. Mark’s daughter said, “Are you ever actually going to get married? It’s the longest engagement ever!”
EMMERDALE
Are you shocked by Kerry’s poor mothering skills?