Ryan Prescott has said that his Coronation Street character Ryan faces a potentially life-long road to recovery after finding himself the victim of a horrific acid attack.
In last night's episode, as Daisy (Charlotte Jordan) prepared to head off to get married, her stalker Justin (Andrew Still) showed up in the Rovers with the intent of dousing her in acid.
Ryan intervened at the last moment, however, and bore the brunt of the attack, leaving him with agonising burns across his face and chest.
"It's going to change his life forever, because it changes the way he interacts with the world," Prescott explained.
"The difficulty within the parameters of soap is to show some kind of reality of the longevity of what it means to be an acid attack survivor. The restoration and recovery period is so long, if not life-long.
"It's psychotherapy and physiotherapy for many years, if not the rest of your life. There's PTSD and trauma therapy.
"One of the things they teach in the therapy sessions is how to deal with people looking at you in the street. There's a whole phase of just trying to accept how people will react differently around you.
"Your face is the first thing you see when you get up and look in the mirror. It's your first means of communication and it's the thing you most readily identify with yourself. So when that changes, everything changes.
"Despite the massive shift that the incident causes, Ryan is determined to make sure that it doesn't define who he is. I think he wants to somehow find his way back to that infectious spirit that he once had, but it's a long road."
Prior to the attack, Ryan had been preparing to leave the street for a new life DJing in Ibiza, but the setback means that he will now be staying put in Weatherfield as he recovers.
Coronation Street continues Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 8pm on ITV1 and ITVX.
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