'I grew up watching Corrie but now I'm team Emmerdale' - Yorkshire teen actor Fred Kettle on his role in the soap

In America, Australia and the UK, global megastars have cut their teeth on soap operas’ frontline, surviving countless cliffhangers.

Fred Kettle from Bingley could well be the next young soap actor to follow in their footsteps after ITV’s Emmerdale announced him as a regular cast member in May. The 18-year-old portrays the character Dylan Penders.

Dylan, a homeless teenager, befriended April Windsor after she ran away from home. He was later framed by April's father for a robbery and subsequently overdoses, leading to a spell in rehab.

“It was actually my third time auditioning for a character in Emmerdale,” Fred says. “I guess I got lucky, third time's the charm.”

Fred reprised the role of Dylan after an outpouring of support from fans asking to bring the character back to the soap, promising trouble for April and the wider village.

“I actually grew up watching a bit of Corrie with my mum,” Fred says. “But now I'm all for Team Emmerdale. I looked into the character Mason Radcliffe on Corrie played by Luca Toolan, because I feel like our characters are sort of similar in terms of grittiness and maybe they're a little bit misunderstood.

"Dylan has been bought up in a different way to the average teenager. He doesn't really know how to act in social situations.”

Soaps, he feels, can play an important role. They address important and sometimes controversial issues, raise awareness, and influence public discourse.

From topics such as sexual consent, child grooming, addiction and the #MeToo movement, soaps are often credited for shaping societal changes and attitudes.

Fred says of his homeless character: “I wanted to get it right, to be able to portray something that felt true.

"The director went to homeless shelters to get a feel for what living on the streets is like for young people and the storytellers do a huge amount of research in the process of writing the scripts.”

Fred says the emotional rollercoaster of the role is a challenge, but one he thrives on, pulling on his own emotional experiences to “get into that headspace.”

“In terms of getting in and out of character, the journey home after coming off set, especially during the first episode when it was quite full on, was my time to release Dylan from myself.

"I think it's really important for actors to do that because a lot of the time they don't realise it, but they are carrying them on their shoulders.”

Unlike Dylan, Fred has had a stable Yorkshire upbringing in Bingley where he lives with his parents and younger sister.

“My mum's a hairdresser and my dad is a maths teacher. I'm polar opposite to the majority of my family, no one's ever really dabbled in sort of performing arts or acting or anything.”

Fred signed with one of the UK’s leading acting agencies, Articulate Agency, when he was 13. Based near Shipley, it was set up by Stacey Burrows in 2013, a former barrister who negotiates life-changing deals across major TV networks, including Netflix, Sky, ITV, Amazon Prime, and the BBC, as well as UK and US film studios.

The agency secured three cast members and 100 extras in the Netflix hit Adolescence, and cast parts in the new Mission Impossible and Peaky Blinders movie, as well as TV shows including BBC’s Virdee and Man Like Mobeen and the current second series of Nicole Kidman’s Nine Perfect Strangers.

Fred says he was “intrigued” after learning a friend at high school had a screen agent and was involved in work as an ‘extra’.

“I started doing little bits of extra work too and was really enjoying that,” he says. “So, I thought I'd get myself signed up, so I could do actual auditions for speaking roles. I've been doing that for about three years.”

In May, he finished a two-year college course in drama, stage, and screen in Wakefield and is now aiming to be a full-time actor. “A couple of days after I finished college, I was back on set shooting for Emmerdale.”

He says the whole team at Emmerdale has been "hugely supportive”. “It was just amazing to work besides Amelia Flanagan who plays April. She was very helpful and very welcoming when I stepped on the set initially. It was fun.”

He also says he couldn’t have pursued acting without the support of his family. “I suppose at the end of the day it's not a common path to go down,” Fred says.

“I feel like acting is sort of classed as not a proper job, but for some people it is and I'm willing to take that risk.”

Prior to Emmerdale, Fred shot a short film, Poppy Day, which is due for release later this year. He plays Maxine Peak’s son, a role he said was “an absolute honour”.

The drama, by 104 films and directed by Justin Edgar, is about war and remembrance and traces the descent of a young activist into violence.

But “at the moment it’s Emmerdale all the way,” Fred says. “I'm really enjoying working with everyone. It's such a family there at ITV.

"I think everyone's just good friends, the cast, crew, everyone - it's really nice to be part of a team.”

He’s ambitious about the future. “I want to get as far as I can, whether that's staying in the soap, or gritty dramas, or whether that's in America doing big Hollywood films, I don't know. I'm just taking it as it comes. I'm willing to go as far as it takes.”