It was a triumphant night for Emmerdale at the TV Choice Awards, with the Best Soap award heading to the soap for the first time since 2022.
Jeff Hordley was also crowned Best Soap Actor for his role as resident hard-man Cain Dingle, and he used the opportunity to pay tribute to the man he considers to be his mentor, Steve Halliwell.
Steve died in December at the age of 77, with a statement from Emmerdale saying, ‘Steve will forever be synonymous with Emmerdale. The proud defender and head of the Dingle family. Heart and humour in all he did, it has been and always will be impossible not to smile when you think of him.’
Steve had played Zak since 1994, with his final appearance in the show coming in June last year in a warmly funny scene with Dan Spencer (Liam Fox). In the world of Emmerdale, Zak is currently in Scotland with his granddaughter Debbie and is frequently mentioned in the show.
After receiving his award, Jeff Hordley spoke to Metro.co.uk about his favourite storylines over the 23 years he’s played Cain. The first one he thought of involved Zak.
‘One of my favourite storylines was the “who bludgeoned Cain?” when it was Zak who did it and there was all this whodunnit. That was great, I really enjoyed that,’ he recalled. In 2012 Cain was attacked and suffered a head injury, later claiming that Jai Sharma (Chris Bisson) had attacked him. Eventually it turned out to have been Zak.
While the relationship between Cain and Zak might have been volatile at times over the years, Jeff Hordley’s memories of Steve Halliwell are warm and affectionate. The actor said that Steve’s death had had a huge impact on everybody in the show.
‘Sadly we lost Steve Halliwell before Christmas and that’s been a real blow to us because he’s such an important figure in our show,’ he said.
‘Not just on screen but behind the scenes he was a much-loved man and really influenced us as actors and showed us how to behave and also how to have fun and do the job properly.’
Beloved Emmerdale legend Steve died last year (Picture: ITV/REX)
Jeff said his favourite memory of Steve was ‘Just him mentoring me, just mentoring me and teaching me how to be a better actor.’
The things Jeff learned from his mentor have been put to good use in the past year, with the character having cause to reflect on his own particular brand of toxic masculinity and particularly how it affected his young sons.
Recently he was severely beaten up in a fight with Aaron Dingle. In the wake of this he admitted to Moira (Natalie J. Robb) that he felt like a shadow of his former self.
He traced the change back to the shooting of Al Chapman and and the aftermath, when he tried to protect Kyle (Huey Quinn) from going to prison his son was the one who pulled the trigger.
Cain said that had been like a ‘handbrake’ and he felt ‘weak’ and ‘pathetic.’ Moira pointed out that strength comes in more forms than how handy you are with your fists – a lesson that Cain is slowly learning.
Emmerdale has given a few updates on Zak, the most recent being a message to bride to be Belle Dingle (Eden Taylor-Draper).
