Emma Atkins is proud to hear people are coming out after watching Charity Dingle.
Emma Atkins
The 'Emmerdale' actress has received loads of positive feedback
from teenage girls who have been inspired to come out after watching the relationship between her character Charity Dingle and Vanessa Woodfield (Michelle Hardwick), with the couple getting engaged in a recent episode.
Emma is pleased that people are being shown a lesbian relationship on screen that is "believable" and "strong".
Speaking on 'Lorraine', she said: "She's fallen in love with somebody she never expected too, regardless of what sex but the feedback with that, there were a lot of young teenage girls who had really struggled to come out to their parents.
"They felt that that being in the living room gave them the strength to tell the parents, because their parents were seeing something that was believable and strong and that makes me feel proud because usually I'm putting on a wig and robbing cars and I don't get any credit for it."
The 43-year-old soap star went on to explain that although she was initially shocked that her character was going to permanently fall for a woman after previously being bisexual she is now fully behind her romance with Michelle's alter ego.
Emma said: "Charity has fallen in love with a woman, it's good, it works I don't know if she would ever go back to being in love with a man I guess she could, she could do anything. But it's working for now and Michelle and I have good camaraderie and it's just so different. The random script we got where they kiss in the cellar, Michelle said, 'We're getting off with each other in the cellar next block,' and I was like, 'What?! Are you kidding?' "
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