Emmerdale star shares poignant detail from Jimmy King's funeral filming
It's set to be an emotional time on Emmerdale in the coming weeks, as everybody is preparing to bid farewell to Jimmy King. And with his funeral set to take place soon, Nicola Wheeler has spoken about the experience of filming the scenes.
The beloved character died last month after sustaining injuries from a car accident, which took place on the wedding day of Joe Tate and Dawn Fletcher, the latter of whom also passed away.
Related: Best streaming services UK 2026 – including Disney Plus, Netflix, iPlayer and Apple TV
The drama didn't stop there, though, as ex-wife Sadie rocked up and claimed that she had been in a relationship with Jimmy for the past three years. She has managed to convince Nicola that it was the truth, though viewers know that she's scheming.
With Nicola not knowing what was real about her relationship with Jimmy anymore, Wheeler shared that her character will have conflicting emotions when it comes to the day of her late husband's funeral.
"She's caught between a rock and a hard place," said the actor. "She has to be respectful to Jimmy and show she cares for the sake of the children. But apart from his death, it possibly is the worst day of her life.
"If the love of your life goes before you, it's being able to tell the world what a wonderful person they were and how much you loved them – she begins the funeral day feeling that Jimmy has taken that away from her.
"She can't express her love. She ends up writing something personal, but doesn't want to speak. She's going to spend her time making sure the kids are alright," added the star, who has appeared on the ITV soap since 2001.
"She feels utterly betrayed - it's the one time that she'd want to sing her husband's praises and how much she loved him, and just the great man that he was. She just feels like she can't."
While the character will be struggling with the loss of her husband, Wheeler herself is now adapting to life without co-star Nick Miles, with the pair having spent over 15 years appearing together on-screen.
For that reason, the scenes packed a punch during filming, with Wheeler recalling: "There's a finality when you're staring at a grave. It was emotional to film. It starts busy like funerals do.
"Slowly but surely, as the day went on, we moved outside to the grave. People disappeared from the set, and the very last shot I did I was completely on my own with a drone, and I've never done that before.
"All the crew and everyone had to disappear – it was just little old me. I suddenly felt really lonely, but it worked because that's what Nicola would feel. This is it - Jimmy has gone and he's not coming back."
It remains to be seen what the future will hold for the popular character, but there will understandably be an enormous sense of grief. And as Wheeler put it, it will take a long time before Nicola is back on her feet.
"She doesn't recover, she still struggles for months to come," said the actor. "It's not a quick fix. He's part of her life all the time. She can't even see beyond Jimmy. Her future is that he was and still is the love of her life. That will always be.
Related: Emmerdale star Sandra Marvin lands new role in award-winning musical
"Although there's some comfort in that - that's also quite a lonely place to be," she added. "Nicola is lucky to have Laurel, who has been through it. She's got a great friend to take her on the journey of grief."
While Nicola will be grieving, there is still the small matter of Sadie, who is up to her old tricks again after two decades away. But despite the returning character being a nasty piece of work, Wheeler couldn't speak higher of co-star Patsy Kensit.
"She was so nervous at the start. I love watching people find their feet, and suddenly her confidence grew," she said. "She is not like Sadie at all - she's very sweet and lovely natured. You couldn't get a more different person playing a bitch. It was great."
Emmerdale airs on weeknights at 8pm on ITV1, and streams on ITVX.
Read more Emmerdale spoilers on our dedicated homepage
Visit our Streaming Guide now to see at a glance where you can view ALL your favourite shows and movies.
The new edition of Legends, a 100-page celebration of Dolly Parton's life, is here. Buy Dolly in newsagents or online.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.