Deena Payne, who's played a Landan born version of the lady gremlin from Gremlin's 2 (lady gremlin resembles so many souls), has spoken out regarding her exit from the Soap after flashing her thighs and near decapitating Emmerdale residents with her shoulder pads for nearly 20 years. And she ain't happy.
Payne, talking to The Mirror, stated: "I was very disappointed with my departure. And I think the viewers will be, too. Having followed Viv for so long and travelled with her on her ups and downs, I think they'd want a better build-up so they could really get into it and give her a good send-off. I was promised a big storyline. Instead it's probably the easiest exit in soap history because I didn't have to act at all. I wasn't even involved in the dramatic rescue scenes. Over my three last episodes I had one scene in each, with the house burning down without Viv knowing it - and that was my storyline. I had to do nothing, which was a shame. It's a bit of an anti-climax after being told that you're going to have one of the biggest storylines that soap has ever seen, but for my character it wasn't at all. The big storyline is the fire and how people get everyone out. And quietly, behind the scenes, Viv just gets burned to death. Without saying a word. The easiest acting I've done in 18 years!"
She ain't finished.
"What did really hurt me (was the fact that Coldplay was the last thing your character heard?) - what did get me and is a bit disloyal to the fans and to Viv - is the fact that she isn't even buried in Emmerdale. If they had to kill me off, they could at least have given me a nice funeral befitting Viv, instead of being shunted out of the Dales. You can't be in a soap forever. But I feel let down by the way Viv's been written out. Viv was a strong character, central to village life in the post office, and it's a shame she's not being buried next to her ex-husband Vic in the graveyard and doesn't even have a headstone there. It would have been nice, too, to have seen Donna, Scott and Kelly, Viv's kids and stepdaughter, just to have got a little bit of the past back into the now. They're losing the history of the village. They said they couldn't get them. But I was on the phone to them immediately and they said they hadn't even been asked and of course they'd come back. And Kelly, played by Adele Silva, is coming back in the show anyway! It is a shame for Viv and for everyone who's been watching her."
Terry also perished in last night's fire, leaving little TJ an orphan, but do you hear Billy Hartman giving out? No. He got killed off after 16 years on the soap trying to save a lady Gremlin from 1990 who the producers won't even bury in Ashley's polystyrene graveyard. And that's the thanks he gets for realistically playing a stroke victim for a good four months? Especially when Betty easily could've gone to the big crochet blanket in the sky?!