Being best mates with your partner's ex-husband must surely be the ultimate in a modern happy family set-up - and it is a situation for which soap actor Oliver Farnworth is very grateful. The former Corrie star, 41, now lives in Spain with Samantha Womack but is heading to the Dales on the advice of her ex, Mark Womack. Considering Sam, who played Ronnie Mitchell in EastEnders , and Mark, who starred as Emmerdale's dodgy detective Mark Malone, have two adult children and only split in 2018, this one big happy family is at odds with the drama such a scenario would spark on a soap.
But for Oliver, Sam, 51, and 63-year-old Mark, it works. Oliver, who joins Emmerdale on Thursday as the brooding and enigmatic John Sugden, also gets on well with the pair's children, Lily, 19, and Benjamin, 23. "Mark is a good friend," explains Oliver, who began dating Sam in 2019, the year after her split with Mark.
"I actually just spoke to him yesterday. And when I got offered [the part in Emmerdale ], Mark told me it was a great job. He was full of praise for the place.
" Mark starred on the show in 2020 and brought havoc to the Dales. Oliver meanwhile makes his debut as the son of the late Jack Sugden (Clive Hornby), the result of a fling in the 80s with John's mum Barbara. "I remember [Mark] saying when he was filming, that it's such a gorgeous place to work - it's really, really brilliant," says Oliver.
"So when this came along, I was excited. And it is great. He said to me, 'I told you so' and I said, 'You did.
'" Oliver previously played Andy Carver in Coronation Street from 2014 to 2017 and was memorably held captive and then eventually murdered by Weatherfield serial killer Pat Phelan. But had his character not suffered an untimely end, he may not have met Sam. The pair starred together in the play The Girl on the Train, which began touring in 2019.
Later, they realised their friendship had blossomed into romance. The couple were brought even closer together when Sam was diagnosed with breast cancer in August 2022. She is now free of the disease, but Oliver recalls: "It sort of changes your outlook and makes you possibly appreciate what you've got a bit more and maybe live your life a bit more as well.
" Sam had only gone in for a routine check but Oliver cannot imagine what would have happened if she hadn't. "That really saved us," he says. The way Sam handled her ordeal made Oliver even more in awe of her.
"She wanted to get through everything and get back on stage as quickly as possible," he says. "She's a real fighter, and she won't let things get in her way. But, she was just so brave and eloquent speaking about what's she's been through and gracious.
" The couple first shared a fleeting encounter courtesy of Oliver's then Corrie co-star Les Dennis . Les had just left the ITV soap after becoming Pat Phelan's first victim, Michael Rodwell. He had invited Oliver to see him in the stage production of The Addams Family in which he was co-starring with Sam.
"I was meant to see it, but I was on a night shoot," says Oliver. "But I was walking past the theatre to say hi to him and Sam was there too. I said, 'Hi, nice to meet you' and that was it! "We properly met on The Girl on the Train.
The play was only meant to be six months but then it went on for another six months. We actually worked together for pretty much the whole year and we became really good friends. And we just stayed in touch afterwards really.
" The couple clearly share an amazing relationship judging by the sweet posts Sam has shared on social media. Oliver is equally smitten, not least by his partner's acting ability. "Sam was absolutely brilliant in The Girl on the Train," he says.
"She was on stage for the whole two hours. It was a very big performance." Born and raised in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, Oliver had always wanted to be an actor.
He trained at the prestigious Bristol Old Vic, and the acting bug runs in his family as his younger sister Cordelia Farnworth is a star of the stage. As well as telly success he's starred in several stage productions including 42nd Street, working again with Sam and also reuniting with Les. On that job, he and Sam had a little relationship test.
"We shared a dressing room, that was interesting!" he jokes. "'Oh, where's my things?', 'Where's my towel?!'..
No, 99% of the time, it was great. That was really cool to do. And it was a joy to be reunited with Les again.
" Oliver makes his debut as Jihn Sudgen in Emmerdale this Thursday ( August 8). Currently, the once iconic Sugden family is vastly outnumbered in the village with only two cast members carrying the name - Sarah ( Katie Hill ) and Victoria ( Isabel Hodgins ). Viewers will see Victoria drive Eric Pollard ( Chris Chittell) )to the funeral of an old friend - John’s mum.
“She’s really excited that she might have a new family member. Right from the off, John just is not particularly interested. He’s quite insular and just wants to leave the village.
“ But it's clear that John will be sticking around. Oliver is seven weeks into filming and is staying in a Leeds hotel until he gets a break to go back home to Valencia. But he's not complaining.
"The village where we film is gorgeous and the Woolpack feels like you're in a real countryside pub, except the beer isn't real," he jokes. Nevertheless, he's looking forward to a break and getting back home to Sam in Spain. Oliver says: "It's such a different kind of pace to things, we've got the mountain views, we've got all our dogs there, all five dogs and a cat.
We get on really well and, you see, we share a lot of similar interests. When we're not working, we like to be fairly chill. "We love the outdoors, we love our animals.
" Sam's kids Lily and Ben visit when they can. And they love nothing more than cooking with Oliver in his and Sam's paella kitchen. He explains: "We like to cook together as a family.
It's quite common in Spain to have an area for cooking paella. Because we're up in a forested area we can't have any outdoor fires [so] we've got this huge, purpose-built structure." It doubles up to keep them warm in winter as there's no central heating.
"It does get a bit chilly in the winter. We've got old roaring fires in the winter and, yeah, we cook the paella over it. So the lifestyle that we have it's really nice.
" It certainly sounds better than Sam's old Walford stomping ground. Emmerdale is on weekdays on ITV1 at 7.30pm.
