Coronation Street character Curtis Delamere revealed to fiancée Emma that he had a heart condition earlier this year, but after a shocking incident on the cobbles this week, Emma soon discovered that Curtis has been lying to her.
Viewers were shocked when the revelation was made by Curtis’ doctor that there was nothing wrong with his heart, with actor Sam Retford telling Lorraine: “Fictitious illness disorder is this psychosomatic disorder that kind of plays on past trauma and neglect, so it’s a really debilitating disorder.”
Talking about preparing for the storyline, he added: “It’s very real and I’ve spoken to people who have it, and I’ve spoken to a lot of psychologists and clinical psychiatrists about their views on it.”
Since actor Sam Retford joined the soap in 2021 as Curtis, he has become one of the street’s well-known faces.
However before Coronation Street, Sam also had another rival soap role and revealed earlier this year that he has a secret film role behind the scenes too.
Rival soap role
(Image: shared content unit)
He might be known to fans as Curtis from Coronation Street, but before walking onto the Weatherfield cobbles, Sam starred in another rival soap.
At the age of 15 years old, he landed his first major television role as Nate in the 2014 Hollyoaks spin-off series Tom’s Life.
From there, it was onwards and upwards for the star, with viewers recognising Sam in another of his famous roles – Cory Wilson in the hit Channel 4 series Ackley Bridge, from 2017-2019.
After most recently starring in Death in Paradise and The Boleyns: A Scandalous Family, he joined the cast of Coronation Street in 2021, with Sam saying to The Mirror that working on the soap is “a wicked new experience”.
“Learning and unlearning things – on my first day I came in with a prerequisite of how I’ve worked before, and you have to just throw that all in the bin,” said Sam.
“It’s totally different psychologically! It’s a good training ground.”
Secret film link
(Image: BFI/Youtube)
Sam is as equally talented off-screen as he is on-screen, revealing to Daily Star and other press earlier this year that he has a secret film role behind the scenes.
In 2020, he worked on the short film S.A.M, about two people who meet in their local park one day, and form a close bond.
Not only did he star in the film as Sam, but he is also a co-founder of the film production company that made it, alongside fellow creatives Neil Ely and Lloyd Eyre-Morgan.
Talking about the production company, which has made S.A.M and horror film White Wedding, he said: “We’re just a really creative bunch of people. We endeavour to make social commentary films, films that tell stories.
“We do everything. We build the sets, we write it, shoot it, grade it, all of the stuff.
“We’ve even got an original song in [White Wedding] by Eliot Kennedy, the guy who did the music for the Spice Girls, so that’s really exciting.”
Imposter hell
(Image: ITV)
After rising to fame in programmes including Coronation Street and Ackley Bridge, Sam revealed exclusively to Daily Star that he discovered people impersonating him online, trying to organise get-togethers.
As a result, he deleted his Facebook and his Twitter accounts, saying that although he is not present much on social media, he does post photos of him outdoors on Instagram.
“It’s a place for me to post pictures of me – with trees.
“I got rid of Facebook and Twitter. It’s negative and takes a very strong-minded person to confront that every day.”
He added: “I had incidents of people organising to meet up with a fake me – that could be dangerous.”
The star also added that he had been the victim of trolling via social media, saying: “Messages come in and go from being complimentary, when they see you’re not engaging, then it becomes malicious.
“You can see it’s there to spark a reaction.”
Australian home
Although Sam was raised in Cheshire, he was actually born in Gosford, Australia on June 22, 1999.
However, despite having started life in Australia, he told the website Northern Soul that Manchester will always be his home.
“I’ve always called Manchester home,” said Sam, saying: “I love it over here and it’s where my family is.”
He also explained in the interview that his love of acting was sparked by his school teachers, who would always put him in the school plays.
“It all started for me at school. I was the loud kid, so teachers put me in the front for every assembly and school play.
“I just fell into it that way and started also doing plays outside of school.”
However, he did add that before acting, he wanted to be a marine biologist due to his love of the outdoors, with the actor regularly posting photos of himself on adventures such as walking and diving, as well as riding his bike.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
