Samantha Giles has quit 'Emmerdale'.
Samantha Giles
The 48-year-old actress has announced she is departing the ITV soap after seven years of playing Bernice Blackstock.
Taking to Twitter, she wrote: "After 7 fabulous years I am shortly to be hanging up Bernice's aprons and leaving the dales to pursue other creative projects. I will miss all the friends I've made on the show, but I'm very excited to be moving on to pastures new."
Nothing has yet to be revealed about how Samantha's character would quit the soap but she previously revealed she would like to have some more "serious storylines" alongside her usual comedic role.
She said: "I think it could work really well doing some serious storylines, with the 'comedy characters' having something difficult to deal with because it proves that things could happen to anybody. But it is nice with us - the show wouldn't work with absolutely everybody in it having a hard time or being miserable. They have to share it out - which is great for us."
Samantha left the show in 2002, making a brief appearance again in 2004, before returning permanently in 2012 but she had previously revealed she doesn't think she will stay on 'Emmerdale' forever.
Speaking back in 2016, she said: "I'm really enjoying it at the moment. I don't think I'm the sort of person who can stay in the one role for donkey's years - not that there's anything wrong with that.
"It's just that I get very itchy feet, so I would like to do other work at some point in the future. But I have a young family, and I don't like to be away from them for long periods of time, so it's a nice balance. I realise I'm very lucky. 'Emmerdale' is a lovely place to be."