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One of our favourite Fair City stars is RETURNING to the series

He's back!

VIPIRELAND.COM

Fair City star Johnny Ward is returning to the series, to mark the show’s 30th anniversary.

Two and a half years since he left the show, Johnny will return as Ciaran Holloway – the psycho kidnapper who kept Katy hostage in a box for over a year, to get revenge on her brother Emmet.

Speaking to the Irish Sun about his return, the actor said: “I got a phone call in March asking if I would be interested in coming back as Ciaran for the 30th anniversary and the first thing I asked was ‘how?’ He had been stabbed and fell into the pier, how was he back?”

“But they have written such a brilliant storyline, it couldn’t be like Katy opens the door and I am standing there, and she is like ‘what are you are doing here?’”

“But I am lucky to be involved, it is such a good family there and I am lucky they wanted me back. But there was that question of how do you do this?”

“It can’t just be a thing where he is sitting in McCoys with a pint, saying, ‘Remember that time I kidnapped that girl?’”

Johnny admitted the last few months have been tough, as he’s had to hide his return to Fair City from friends and family.

“I found out two days before the final of Dancing With The Stars. But I had to put it to one side and get through the final,” he said.

Johnny Ward and Emily Barker

“The only way to do it was look to the next project only, so Coppers the Musical. But there was one Thursday where I had to be in RTE and I had to explain to a couple of people in Coppers where I was, apart from that I was sworn to secrecy.”

“I couldn’t tell anyone else. It was like when I was in Love/Hate. It killed me then as well, all my friends were obsessed with the show and yet I couldn’t tell them so I had to go from March to October without saying anything.”

Johnny’s return to the show as Ciaran was confirmed this week, after Fair City teased the return of a major character in eery promo videos.

Johnny continued: “I assumed I was killed off or if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be back for a very long time, so it was really strange after two and a half years.”

“I wondered was it too early but as soon as I got back, it was great. I am so lucky with that part. We were trending number one at the time, above the US election, which was a huge moment for Fair City.

“People were watching who had never watched before. And the reaction I was getting. I was in a petrol station in Cork, filling up on my way to see my friend in panto and this 75-year-old woman slapped me across the face,” Johnny revealed.

“She hit me with her handbag and told me ‘to let that poor girl go.’ I ran off and I slipped on the ice getting away and her and her husband were laughing.”

“And then I was on Grafton St and this young lad in a Liverpool jersey spat at me. I looked at his mam who shouted, ‘we are sick of that storyline, will you let her go?’ And I had to yell, ‘it’s not real.’”

Johnny also addressed the passing of Fair City actor Karl Shiels, who played Robbie, and Tom Jordan, who played Charlie.

He said: “I think it was an awful month for actors, non-stop deaths in the industry. The opening night of Coppers, Brendan Grace had just died, and then less than a week after it was Karl Shiels.”

Johnny Ward | JERRY MCCARTHY

“I was speechless, dumbfounded. He was a real gent and a real leader. He had a big personality and I couldn’t say a bad word about him.

“Three weeks before that Tom Jordan had died and Nika McGuigan, who was so lovely, I knew her really well, we did a film called Mammal together in Luxembourg.”

“I am really weird, I like to get my scripts a week and a half before so I can learn my lines and other people’s but when I came back, they couldn’t do that because they had to rewrite a lot of scenes because of Tom and Karl, and then Rodrigo was sick. I still don’t know how they did it, it was amazing,” he added.

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