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16 April 2025

Hollyoaks actor James Sutton says Channel 4 was ‘so brave’ to air his gay teen romance storyline

Sutton commended the channel and Hollyoaks production, saying: "Don't forget, we were on at 6.30 in the evening. That's early"

By Gary Grimes

James Sutton and Guy Burnet in Hollyoaks
James Sutton and Guy Burnet in Hollyoaks (Image: Channel 4)

James Sutton, the actor who has played John Paul McQueen on the Channel 4 soap opera Hollyoaks since 2006, has reflected on his iconic teen gay romance storyline.

In 2007, the character of John Paul began a romantic relationship with his schoolmate and best friend Craig Dean, played by Guy Burnet. The storyline caused the show to win Broadcast of the Year at the 2007 Stonewall Awards. He also received nominations at the British Soap Awards and Inside Soap Awards for his performance.

In a recent episode of the All Out podcast, Sutton spoke to host Jon Dean about how he feels about having played this gay character at a time when gay representation on television was still relatively rare.

“I don’t underestimate the impact and the joy and the comfort that I get as a straight man, but more so as a performer to know that what we did then had such an impact, it’s the most beautiful thing,” Sutton said. “Not many actors get that. There’s only a few on soaps who’ve had that kind of storyline and those kind of scenes.”

Sutton also praised Channel 4 for airing the storyline, particularly given the soap’s early scheduling. “And also, don’t forget, we were on at 6.30 in the evening. That’s early,” he noted. “And we knew our demographic was 13-30. We knew that there were going to be children ultimately watching

“[It was] so brave of Channel 4 and Line Pictures and Hollyoaks to put that out when they did.”

The actor, who identifies as straight in his personal life, also spoke about the experience of shooting sex scenes with various scene partners over his 15+ year stint on the soap opera. Recalling his time working with the actor Gregory Finnegan, who played John Paul’s love interest James Nightingale, Sutton revealed the pair developed a tactic to avoid shooting prolonged kissing scenes which caused them both stubble rash.

“We came up with this sort of way around it because a lot of the scenes would end with, ‘…and then they snog and start to rip each other’s clothes off’. But after a few times of doing this, we’d both have stubble rash and we’d be like, ‘Fuck, I just can’t keep doing it,'” Sutton laughed. “So we came with this thing where we’d snog and then we’d fall out of frame, that was our way around.

“I mean, there are instances where there’s clothes being ripped off and stuff, which I’m more than happy to get involved with,” Sutton continued. “I don’t mind getting down and dirty, but when you’ve been doing it all afternoon and it’s your mate, you’re like, ah, just can we just fall out of frame please?”

You can watch Sutton’s interview on All Out in full below:

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