Fans were shocked and delighted when Coronation Street star Brian Capron made a small appearance on the cobbles last Christmas, reprising his role as legendary villain Richard Hillman. However, the actor has shared that he was “very dubious” about his return until he read the script.

Financial advisor Richard first arrived in Weatherfield in 2001 as Gail Platt’s latest love interest. The pair became each other’s third spouses a year later, with Richard officially joining Gail’s family.

Viewers soon learnt that the charming businessman was actually a con-artist who preyed on the elderly, including his new friends and neighbours. In a bid to clear his mounting debts, Richard became one of the soap’s most notorious and terrifying serial killers before his dramatic death in 2003.

Last year, Coronation Street legend Helen Worth announced that she would be exiting her role as Gail after an impressive 50 years on the cobbles. Her departure storyline saw Gail riding off into the sunset with her new husband Jesse Chadwick on Christmas Day – but not before she was visited by a ghost of her past.

In a shocking scene, a conflicted Gail considered her upcoming marriage and the impact of leaving her family to move to France. While flicking through an old photo album, she fell asleep on the sofa and was awoken by a menacing vision of Richard.

In an interview with The Sun, Capron admitted his cameo almost didn’t happen as he believes it’s “fatal” to return to a soap.

“I was gobsmacked and a bit wary until I read the script,” Capron recalled. “I thought, ‘How on earth can I bring the character back?’.

‘It was a vision, which could have been incredibly dodgy. I always think it’s fatal to go back in a soap, like Leslie Grantham did in EastEnders as Dirty Den, so I was very dubious, but it had all the right elements.”

He added: “It was quite funny, so it had the humour that was always around the character, but also it was slightly menacing. It was really clever.”

The vision saw Richard in Gail’s living room, covered in weeds and dripping wet – in reference to his dramatic drowning in 2003. After confessing his crimes, the villain went on the run but returned a few weeks later, kidnapping the Platts and driving them all into canal.

Explaining how he achieved the wet look during his return, Capron explained: “I had a wetsuit underneath my suit to keep me warm. It was quite difficult to move and I had to keep it on all day, because they kept spraying me with water until it was literally running off me.”