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Can we trust her? Can we not? Is she evil? Is she misunderstood? Emmerdale’s latest villain Celia Daniels is somewhat of an enigma to fans at the moment as we try and work out what is genuine about her and what is not.
For now, we have seen flashes of a vicious and conniving side but also hopes that she can form bonds with characters like Moira Dingle (Natalie J Robb).
So should we really be fearing her? Surely she has some redeeming features, right? Well, according to TV stalwart Jaye Griffiths, seemingly not as fans should expect the unexpected from developments in the storyline, with the worst very much yet to come for the character.
Bad news for anyone who was banking on a long Moira and Celia friendship then!
Metro caught up with the actress, known for many roles across TV drama including Casualty, Doctors and The Bill, as I tried to dig deeper into the character I am finding most intriguing right now.
‘Oh, the worst is yet to come, by far! This is only the beginning. Oh goodness me, yes, there is more to come,’ Jaye told me with a deliciously knowing cackle.
I have to respect her for keeping her cards close to her chest as she has known what Celia’s outcome and endgame is since the beginning, with an arc planned that will throw several twists that will leave you gobsmacked.
Jaye eventually trusted me with some juicy gossip that I am holding close to my chest until it happens – I wouldn’t dare risk a wallop from Celia’s stick if I gave the game away but I can promise you there are some shocks in store. And yes, Celia is as wicked as we have been warned.
‘I knew on day one!’ she grinned. ‘The producers were fantastic and told me how the arc of the story went. I didn’t tell anybody what I already knew until they’d read the scripts. It’s just a joy knowing where she’s going to get to.
‘Because at the moment she befriends Moira, and in another universe Mira and Celia would be friends – just not in this one! The fact Moira opens a small window on what could have been… She shuts that pretty quick!’
On what makes Celia tick, Jaye went on: ‘She’s single-minded, and if you get in her way – get out of her way. This is what I love about her. She doesn’t understand why you people don’t understand. Do what I want or suffer the consequences!
‘It’s not complicated – just do what I want you to do and all will be well. When she meets resistance, that’s when the fun begins, because she’ll deal with you differently as she deals with every person in the village differently, according to their character which she is very good at summing up very quickly. She’s not evil, she’s just… different!
‘Nothing she has said could be taken as truth in any way, shape or form. So if you start there, that everything that comes out of her mouth may be, but probably isn’t, the truth. Reading the scripts, there was a lovely distinction to make between when you’re telling the truth and why, and when is she being circumspect and just manipulating the conversation.
‘It’s just a minefield, it’s fantastic. And that goes on every day – I look and think, “Is she telling the truth?”
‘I don’t mean she’s lying. That’s what’s so clever about Celia. She doesn’t tell lies, she says what will best suit the endgame. For her, that’s a distinction. For the rest of the world, we call it lying.’
I personally, like many fans, adore Celia and Jaye confirms that she does get a lot of love from viewers who are enjoying the campness of the character but she has warned that with what’s to come, we probably won’t like her for much longer!
But the person who is relishing her the most is clearly Jaye herself, who gets to play her own outrageous and complete opposite while soaking up the countryside.
‘Fans love that she has no filter in that regard. My concern is that that love will diminish and will be somewhat tainted by Celia’s behaviour later. We shall see,’ she mused.
‘She’s great to play. To begin the day that you simply don’t care – you don’t care what anyone thinks and you don’t care about their feelings. You care how business is going and who can and cannot help business, that’s all the criteria you have.
‘What will best suit my business today is if I’m nice to you, so I will be. I can do ‘nice’ because I’ve practised. That’s how she navigates the world. It’s wonderful, she has no voice in her head that says she can’t, there’s no self-criticism. She has criticism of everybody else, but not of herself.’
And then there’s her wardrobe – another thing that Emmerdale has nailed to a tee as it utterly summarises Celia’s lack of real interest in getting her own hands dirty. She’s perfectly gleaming for someone meant to be running a farm!
‘That’s not a farmer who goes in fields, is it? That’s just a farmer who swans around,’ Jaye laughed. ‘Not many farmers I know can swan. Most farmers have got dirty hands and are up at the crack of dawn every single day of the year. Celia doesn’t do that. She has a mug of tea and puts on her farmer uniform. I love my costume and I love my stick!’
So how does life in Emmerdale compare to the many other serial drama gigs Jaye has under her belt?
She pondered the question and told me: ‘It’s an incredibly happy, welcoming place to work that spoils you for anywhere else, quite frankly, and I don’t understand how anybody ever leaves. It’s an extraordinarily lovely, kind place to work and you cannot ask for more than that.
‘But it is also five nights a week, get it out. There’s no time to stop and stare. Of course there’s time to talk but you must be prepared, and that’s similar to being in long-running dramas. You have to come prepared.
‘If you have questions, make sure you’re prepared with them on the day. We don’t have an hour and a half for you to have a chat about how you’re feeling. You can change your mind, but have really good reasons why. And do your homework, too, your prep. Obviously don’t be late!’
Jaye originally wanted to be a ballet dancer but discovered as a teen- these are her words, not mine! – that she was ‘spectacularly mediocre.’
That’s when the world of acting beckoned and Jaye has treaded the boards and landed on our screens for decades. She is most proud of a one-woman show she was in called Don’t Wake Me.
‘No-one saw it – four people and their blind terrier. But it was an extraordinary work by Rahila Gupta about a mother’s relationship with her disabled son. It’s a beautiful, beautiful piece of work. When you’re on stage by yourself for one hour one minute, with nothing but your wits, you realise that you’re not quite as feeble as you thought. It was such a beautiful piece to work on, I miss it. I’m too flippin’ old now to play it.’
And of course, many of the shows Jaye is known for have sadly ended – most notably The Bill and Doctors. How does she feel when she looks back on the experiences and compares it to the landscape now?
‘Wistful. At the end of the day, people always want stories. We are the equivalent of the campfire. People like serial dramas and soaps because they become invested in the characters and their stories. It’s a thing that binds us, storytelling. It doesn’t matter if it’s online or on your phone or tablet or on your telly. It’s the stories, and people will always want those. Otherwise things like Netflix and Prime wouldn’t make any money.
‘I also think we should be slightly wary of the online doom and gloom, because we recall when tablets came out and the prophecy of the end of bookshops. Whereas bookshops are flourishing because people still yearn for physical contact and watching it on the telly, on the sofa with other members of your family, that’s something communal that we still yearn for. I think that still happens whether you watch it when it goes out or two days later, people still sit around the telly and watch it.
‘I’m slightly cautious of the predictions of the end of the world as far as soaps go, but hey-ho, watch this space, we shall see.’
Naming the two roles that have still evaded her as Cleopatra and Lady Macbeth, Jaye remains hungry for meaty roles in between down time with her dogs Elsie and Fanny, her own ‘very slow’ running hobby, learning tennis as ‘the idiot in the room’ and being ‘crap at gardening’ but loving it.
The conversation paints Jaye as a person full of energy, fun, passion and laughter but to imagine she is always so carefree would be mistaken as she used to fret a lot more than she does now.
‘Oh my God I used to be such a worrier,’ she told me when I asked what advice she might give to her younger self. ‘Just relax and get over yourself. No one cares, just work harder. Work harder, say less and do more. I love Arnold Schwarzenegger’s book Be Useful.
‘If you could start every day with “How can I help? What can I do for something or someone outside of the confines of my own head?” life would be much more enjoyable. That’s what makes my life much more interesting now than when I was 25.’
And that’s indeed what makes Jaye so very, very different to Celia, who, in coming months, will be living by a mantra that’s directly opposite.
What can I do for myself and who can I hurt along the way may seem more likely…
Bengali (Bangladesh) · 
English (United States) ·