Joe Layton’s evil character Mick Michaelis is back to cause chaos in Weatherfield but as Joe tells The Mirror he’s already received a torrent of online abuse from viewers
Corrie cop killer Joe Layton has been forgiven by Colson Smith for killing off his much-loved character PC Craig Tinker in a violent attack with a baseball bat. The same can’t be said for fellow Weatherfield residents, whose lives will be in danger next week when Joe’s character Mick Michaelis runs amok on the cobbles after a dramatic jail break.
As he tries to snatch his kids and flee abroad, Mick lands DC Kitt Green in hospital, needing lifesaving surgery. Joe, 33, who is leaving the soap, says of Colson: “He was such a positive energy and for the other cast and crew there’s obviously a massive Colson-sized hole everywhere at Coronation Street. “But we had a good chat when we first met and continued to chat.
“We were both Leeds United fans, so we bonded over that pretty quickly. And I was just struck by what a lovely warm-hearted person he is.“He never made me feel in any way shape or form: ‘I’m doing this bad thing to this popular character.’” Playing a Corrie baddie has prompted some unexpected encounters. Joe tells The Mirror: “I was in Scotland with my sister who lives up there. We were sitting outside a restaurant having a drink and a lady came out from the restaurant.
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“She stood next to me and looked at me and she went, ‘should you not be in prison?’
“She told me that she and the five ladies inside sitting looking at us through the window were all police officers, including the head of the constabulary in Scotland!” Monstrous Mick has had Corrie fans on the edge of their seats since he first stepped on to the cobbles back in February.
But Joe, who was spotted by a US agent at 22 and moved to the States – where he spent 6 years after being promised Hollywood stardom – says his younger self would have turned the role down. Joe, who returned to Britain five years ago, says: “If you’d asked me when I moved to America if I’d ever do a soap, I think I’d have said ‘no.’ No disrespect to soaps, but I didn’t think they were for me.
“I’m just so happy that I was offered the role in Coronation Street when I was. I’d grown up a bit and my attitude towards work had changed. “It’s a great lesson for me that you should try everything, because what I experienced in my six months at Coronation Street was incredible.” And he will be leaving the cobbles with a bang, as Mick causes mayhem after his jail break.
“No-one on the street is safe,” Joe warns. “We’ve seen what he’s capable of – he’s already killed Craig and attacked Kit. “His plan is to look for his kids and try to escape. We see a different side to him and how much his kids mean to him.
“Serving a life sentence isn’t something he can deal with and he’ll do whatever it takes to get out of the country and take his kids with him.” Joe’s big break came 11 years ago when he landed the lead role in the BBC drama series Tatau.
“I came out of drama school and hit the ground running,” he recalls. “I did Tatau and off the back of that I got picked up by a US manager and US agent and had the opportunity to go out there.
“They said ‘you’re going to come over and you’re going to do whatever you want to do.’ In your early 20s why would you not believe that?”
But, renting a studio apartment in the middle of Los Angeles, the scales soon fell from his eyes “It was great, but it was like living next door to Harrods, but not having any money,” he laughs. “I was walking past all these lovely shops and restaurants, but I was cooking baked beans back in my apartment.”
Still, he was delighted to land a role in the hit American TV series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. “When I first drove into the Universal Studio parking lot, I remember sitting in my car calling my dad saying ‘you’ll never guess where I am,’” he smiles.
But, despite this great role, life in LA could be tough. At times, he admits: “I also worked as a carpenter and doing food delivery. I was a very small fish in a very big pond. “It was demoralising at times, but it also taught me to stand on my own two feet.”
And when he started being offered bigger jobs back in Blighty, he came home. Since then, he’s worked alongside Jodie Comer in Thirteen, he appeared in the Dawn French comedy The Trouble with Maggie Cole and in the Netflix crime drama Young Wallander, as well as being cast in the BBC series The Bombing of Pan Am 103.
Then came Mick – a wife beating thug and one of Corrie’s nastiest characters of recent years. “I got a lot of hate online in the form of comments or tweets or direct messages,” Joe recalls. “I think everybody just thought ‘There’s no room for this guy on the street, we don’t like him, get rid, we wish that you’d never existed as an actor or a person!’ “Because Corrie is such a staple in so many people’s day to day and because it’s been on so long, there’s sometimes a fine line separating reality and your character.
“I was lucky that my previous job was The Bombing of Pan Am 103. That was airing at the same time on BBC. So, the night that Craig was killed I was on ITV at 8-9pm and then 9-10pm I was on BBC playing a really nice American character.”
London-born Joe, who grew up in Ilkley in the Yorkshire Dales, wrote a journal as Mick, to help understand his character. “I wrote it first person as Mick,” he explains. “It was just a stream of consciousness. “I was playing an abusive husband who kills a police officer. On paper that’s dreadful and horrible, but my job as an actor is to get to the why and the motivation. You don’t judge the character; you try to understand them and step into their shoes.
“Mick is a really wounded, angry man who has been let down and fallen through the cracks at multiple different times in his life. Sadly there are lots of men out there like that.”
But Joe, who would happily return to Corrie, won’t be watching his final scenes. He is filming in Lithuania for a new Apple TV sci fi series Star City, in which is is playing a Russian cosmonaut alongside Rhys Ifans and Anna Maxwell Martin.
“It was really exciting to go straight into that,” he says. Joe, who will also be touring the UKwith the play Lost Atoms in September, is glad he will miss his soap exit. He says: “When I did my very first TV job my mum organised for lots of friends and family to come over and watch and I felt more nervous than I’d ever felt performing on stage in my entire life!’ he says. “I was hardly in it, but I still felt self-conscious.
“So, the morning that Craig was killed, I went on ITVX at 7.30am to watch it on my own, to prepare myself before I watched it with my girlfriend and our friends in the evening!”
Lost Atoms premieres at Curve Leicester from 22 September before a nationwide tour. For tickets and information go to: www.franticassembly.co.uk