Hollyoaks bosses want legendary star back – but there’s bad news
"I wouldn't be able to do a soap again."
Former Hollyoaks star Gemma Atkinson has shared that she’s been asked to return by producers. The actor played Lisa Hunter on the Channel 4 soap from 2001 to 2005, before returning for a brief stint in 2022.
Speaking on her podcast Lost in Translation, the actor, who also played Carly Hope on Emmerdale, revealed that returning to the world of soaps isn’t something she’s able to do anymore.
“I wouldn’t be able to do a soap again,” she said. “Hollyoaks kindly asked me back a few times and I love Hollyoaks, forever grateful for [it] – it’s because of that soap I’m where I am now.”
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“But when when I did Emmerdale I shared a changing room with Lucy Pargeter, who has twins and at the time they were like Thiago’s (Gemma’s son with Gorka Márquez) age. I genuinely do not know how she did it.”
“The thing is with soaps, you have to be on call 24/7 unless you specifically book time off,” she explained. “We had to have, in my contracts with Hollyoaks, Emmerdale [and] Casualty, that you had to be within an hour of the studio all the time unless you’d book time off.”
Atkinson recalled that during her time with the Channel 4 soap, she was called into work on the Liverpool set despite being in London. She noted that going back now would be “too stressful” given she has a family.
Atkinson’s latest comments echo the ones she made in March 2025, when she said she would “love to do a one-off drama where there was a start date and an end date,” so that she could plan childcare around it.
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The actor, who is currently working for Hits Radio Network, met her fiancé Gorka Márquez when she appeared on Strictly Come Dancing in 2017. The couple are parents to daughter Mia and son Thiago.
While Atkinson has no intention to return to Cheshire for Hollyoaks any time soon, the soap will soon welcome former Coronation Street star Brooke Vincent as the actor plays the new role of Abigail Matthews.
