Hollyoaks cast members involved in the flashforward episode last year, have been asked the same questions 12 months apart, reflecting on how 2020 has affected theirs and their character’s lives.

In 2019, Hollyoaks aired a New Year’s Eve ‘flash-forward’ episode, with scenes which flashed forward to New Year’s Eve 2020 after a year-long county lines story.

To mark the challenge, cast involved in this episode have been interviewed twice with the same questions, 12 months apart, to see how their own lives and those of their characters would change in the space of a year – not predicting that 2020 would be a year of enormous change around the World.

The interviews will be released every day this week at 5pm, starting with Niamh Blackshaw (Juliet), and can be viewed across all of Hollyoaks’ official social channels, with full versions on YouTube.

Other interviewees include: Talia Vanessa Grant (Brooke); Owen Warner (Romeo); Haiesha Mistry (Yazz); Billy Price (Sid); Charlie Behan (Charlie) and Erin Palmer (Ella).

Highlighting how priorities have changed following the Global pandemic, Niamh Blackshaw had previously said that her best news of 2019 was that “I’ve got a new car, I’ve got good storylines at work coming up. I can stay here and work and carry on being happy.” However, flash-forward to the end of 2020 and Niamh’s highlight was the news of a Covid vaccine: “A potential vaccine? I’ve heard rumours of that going ‘round; that’s good news.”

Meanwhile, Talia Grant shared their biggest achievement of 2020, compared to them celebrating 5 award nominations in 2019: “Coming out to people has been probably the biggest achievement, coming out as non-binary, that’s probably been one of the biggest transitions in my life and also the biggest achievement.”

The importance of family has only increased for Owen Warner this year. In 2019 he said: “I’ve really learned the importance of family, and as cliché as that sounds, the best news I’ve probably had is that, right now at this point in time, all my family are happy, healthy, and are all just living life.”

He emphasised this in 2020: “I said that [last year] not knowing about everything that was going to happen. I’ll say that same answer… I miss my family man, I really miss my family.”

The interviews will run from Monday 21 December until Sunday 27 December.