Hollyoaks legend Guy Burnet, who won hearts as Craig Dean, one half of Oak’s iconic couple, ‘McDean’ (along with James Sutton’s John Paul McQueen), is returning to screens with a brand new role.
A far cry from sensitive, sexually-confused Craig, Guy is set to join the cast of Paramount+ series Landman, created by Yellowstone’s Taylor Sheridan for its second season as Charlie Newsome, a ‘charismatic’ oil and gas engineer.
Landman debuted last year, with the show focused on the world of Texas oil rigs, with it’s initial season kicking off in November last year and wrapping up in January.
Paramount+ bosses greenlit a second season in March after it garnered an impressive 35 million global streaming viewers, becoming the streaming services most popular original creation with an all-star cast, featuring Billy Bob Thornton, Demi Moore, Andy Garcia, Sam Elliott and Ali Larter.
In one of Hollyoaks’ most ground-breaking and celebrated plots, teenage best mates Craig and John Paul embarked upon an affair.
Although John Paul’s arc was a more traditional ‘coming out’ story, Craig’s was more focussed on his deep confusion surrounding his feelings and his identity.
Guy’s character faced a compelling journey of falling in love with his best friend, completely flying in the face of his previously established heterosexuality and the two became locked in a gritty, raw and emotionally-turbulent relationship.
As soap law dictates that all affair reveals must cause maximum devastation and carnage, their secret was exposed to the entire village when John Paul engineered a situation in which Craig’s girlfriend Sarah Barnes (Loui Batley) would walk in on them in a passionate clinch.
Craig eventually chose John Paul over Sarah, although both faced significant backlash from the villagers and their own families in a much more conservative 2006.
Hearts broke when Guy decided to leave the show, and with James Sutton staying put, fans braced themselves for the end of McDean.
As the duo planned to leave for Ireland, John Paul realised that Craig was still uncomfortable with the idea of being with another man publicly, and the two parted ways.
Discussing his exit at the time, Guy said: ‘Initially, the thing that threw me over the edge to say ‘right, I am going to leave Hollyoaks’ was when I was sat at home thinking, ‘I’d love to go to Tokyo; I’d love to go and live in Mexico; I want to go and live in Costa Rica; I want to go and do these things now while I’m young and can still do them.’
Talking about how the deep relationships he had formed among the cast made his decision a tough one: ‘I learned so much at Hollyoaks. I loved the place.
‘It was the most difficult decision almost purely based on the people, your best friends who work there – like Nick Pickard (Tony Hutchinson), Jimmy McKenna (Jack Osborne) and Carly Stenson (Steph Dean) – they’re my family.
‘They’re people that before I even made my decision to leave, I went to and spoke to them about it.
‘I remember having a conversation with Nick Pickard and saying ‘I love it here, it’s great but I feel that I want to move on but the thing that makes me want to stay the most is you guys’. He said to me, ‘go, don’t let that hold you back.’
Guy did return to the village to tie in with John Paul’s (temporary) exit, giving fans the happy ending they craved as the two left together to begin a new life.
Since departing from Hollyoaks, Guy played Theodore Chips in Netflix’s Fubar alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger and had a role in global mega-hit Oppenheimer.
His other roles include turns in The Beast, Reykjavík, Dead for a Dollar, Pitch Perfect, Mortdecai, The Feed, Electric Dreams, Counterpart and The Affair.
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