At times on Emmerdale, it’s incredibly difficult to watch evil Tom King Jr (played by James Chase) when he’s at his worst in his abuse of Belle (Eden Taylor-Draper).

But if we thought it was hard to watch, a thought for Chase, who finds it hard to play such an evil man.

We caught up with Chase at the RadioTimes.com Soa

“I think it is challenging [playing Tom], because some of the scenes are pretty dark,” the actor admitted. “I always try to throw myself into it as much as I can, but I always stop myself from taking it home because it can be so dark.”

Chase continued: “You have to make sure that you do enough to honour it, but not enough to the point where it affects you as a person, because you obviously know that you’re not that character.

“But there definitely are times where it’s uncomfortable. At the end of the day, we know it has to be done because that’s the only way we can really do this storyline.”

“Unless there’s an absolute brick wall that’s before him, I think there’s no barrier that’s going to stop him from doing what he’s doing,” Chase admitted.

“The bar is going to probably keep rising as to what he will do. I think he will do relatively anything to get control over her.”