My absolute favourite character in Soap Land at the moment, by a large margin, is Hollyoaks’ Sienna Blake…
Watching Anna Passey portray the complex role is completely mesmerising, and it’s hard to believe that two years ago another actress was gearing up to take on the part. It wasn’t until the eleventh hour that Sienna was re-cast and Passey took on the character gracing our screens for the first time in November, 2012.
Despite two years not being that long in the grand scheme of things, it’s hard to imagine Hollyoaks without Sienna and her uniquely psychotic persona wandering around the village. The brilliant thing about the character is she’s both the villain and the victim simultaneously, and Passey captures that juxtaposition so perfectly that the audience can both hate what the character is doing while at the same time wanting nothing more than to comfort her with a great big bear hug.
Of course, even though Sienna is probably one of the most villainous characters in soap history, viewers are reluctant to blame Sienna for her actions, as it is ultimately daddy dearest, Patrick (aka. The Demon Headmaster) who is responsible for his daughter’s behaviour, having mentally abused and tortured the poor girl her entire life – Jeremy Sheffield equally as superb in his portrayal of Patrick.
While watching Sienna’s ever evolving storyline evolve over the past few months, I discovered an interesting observation regarding the colour of her fingernails. Whenever the character’s nails are painted black or similarly dark colours it usually indicates that Sienna has been scheming and something bad is about to take place. However, when her nails are painted a lighter, friendlier colour, we get to see her softer, loveable side; the Dr Jeckyll to her Mr Hyde. Then again I could be completely wrong and reading way too much into things…
Obviously Sienna suffers severe mental issues and by rights should be under hospital supervision, but thankfully for fans, the Hollyoaks showrunners have managed to come up with loophole after loophole to keep her out and about. Usually soap villains have an expiry date on how long they can remain before ending up imprisoned or dead, although considering over half of the residents of Hollyoaks either murdered someone of assisted in the covering up of a murder and are still walking around whistling Hakuna Matata, hopefully it means the wonderful Ms Passey will be gracing our telly boxes as Sienna for a long time yet…
The Soap Pundit 