Emmerdale’s Lisa Riley: ‘Cancer is like an aura around me’

There’s so much cancer in Lisa Riley’s family that she declares “it’s like an aura around me”.

The bubbly Emmerdale actress lost her mum to breast cancer, one grandmother to lung cancer and her other grandmother and grandfather to cancer too, and tells the Press Association:  “All the girls in my family go too soon. It’s because they’re so much fun – they want the disco divas. But I’m going to do everything in my power not for it to be the case for me.”

But although she stresses she’s vigilant in keeping an eye out for signs of the disease in herself, saying: “I always look out for anything – we all know our bodies,” she admits that until recently she was unaware of some of the facts about cancer, and explains: “I was very naive and I didn’t have awareness at all about the stats out there.

“I’ve spoken so openly about losing my mum, my poppa, my nana and my gran. I joke about this in a jovial way because I have to, but it’s like an aura around me.

“Yet I always thought breast cancer was the highest killer, especially in women, and it’s not – it’s lung cancer, and I genuinely didn’t know that. I also was the person that thought it’s only people who smoke that get lung cancer, and that’s not true.”

Riley, 50, who plays Mandy Dingle in Emmerdale, also lost her close friend and Emmerdale co-star Leah Bracknell to lung cancer – she died from the disease in 2019 at the age of 55, despite never having smoked.

“It was an enormous shock,” Riley says. “Leah was one of the healthiest people I knew. I remember the whole cast and I being totally shellshocked when we heard the news that she had lung cancer. The fact she was a non-smoker and a yoga teacher who valued the power of breathwork so much meant lung cancer was the last thing we’d have expected for her.

“If it can happen to Leah, it can happen to any one of us. She didn’t smoke,  every day she was using breathwork, and as much as she was hardworking with filming, she had that sense of zen in her life, a wonderful zest for life. She was a phenomenal actress, and she gave me some of the best advice in my life that I went on to pass on to all the young ones that I work with now on the show.

“I owe a lot to her.”

Bracknell’s Emmerdale character, Zoe Tate, became the first lesbian to feature regularly in a British soap when she came out as gay in 1993, and Riley says: “She was the original star of diversity, all those years back, so we’ve got a lot to thank Leah Bracknell for. And me personally, she left a really lasting place on my heart – a wonderful woman.”

In memory of Bracknell, and Riley’s beloved Grandma Pat, who died of lung cancer when she was 69, Riley is supporting the new Don’t Delay – Every Breath Matters campaign by specialist cancer care provider GenesisCare. The campaign aims to raise awareness of the symptoms of lung cancer, which is one of the most common cancers in the UK – official figures show around 48,000 people are diagnosed with lung cancer and about 35,000 people die from it every year in the UK.

And Cancer Research UK says it’s also the biggest cancer killer of women in the UK, causing more deaths each year than breast cancer.

Yet new GenesisCare research has found more than 70% of people questioned were unaware of all the symptoms of lung cancer – a persistent cough, unexplained breathlessness, chest pain, coughing up blood, unexplained weight loss or ongoing fatigue – and nearly half (49%) didn’t know people who’ve never smoked can get the disease.

Alongside the campaign, GenesisCare is launching the Lung Cancer Rapid Response Pathway which will be available from January at its new specialist cancer centre in Leeds, not far from where Riley lives in Yorkshire. She says: “Look, I’m probably going to need this centre. It’s true, and I’m not being Debbie Downer, I’m being a realist.

“If it’s in your family, you need to get checked out – look at what happened with my beautiful grandma Pat, who I miss more than anything, I miss her energy around me. It’s really, really sad.”

Riley says her grandmother initially dismissed her persistent cough as ‘just a smokers’ cough’, and delayed seeking help until it was too late.

“My gran really struggled,” she recalls. “She was an ostrich, she put her head in the sand and thought it would go away. And one thing I’ve learned is the faster you get treated after diagnosis, you have more time with your loved ones – and who doesn’t want that?”

Riley says she’s currently healthy herself – “very much so, touch wood”, and stresses: “I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I eat very well,  I go to the gym, and I look after myself as much as I possibly can.

“I’d like to think I’m healthy, and I’ve got a really good outlook on life – everyone knows that about me. When you talk about wellbeing, everyone always says ‘Can we have a bit of Lisa and bottle that up and sell it like Calpol?’. But it’s true, it’s who I am, I’m never going to change.

“I love what I do. I love my job, I love people.”

She gave up drinking in 2015, and insists there’s nothing she misses about it – in fact, she says a teetotal life is better because she remembers more. “I get to be with people more,” she says, “and I remember now, whereas if you have a few bottles of wine you don’t remember anything. So yeah, I love that.”

She lost 12 stone around 10 years ago through a sensible diet and exercise, and she still exercises at least three times a week, going to the gym, or sometimes swimming. “I’m going with my nephew, and I’ll go and do 50 lengths,” she says. “I love exercise – it frees my head. It’s like all the dialogue that’s in my head every day for work, I get to empty it in the gym.”

But it’s not just herself Riley takes care of – she keeps an eye on all her family and friends too.

“I’ve got to look after all my fold – I look after everybody,” she says.

“There’s a reason I haven’t had children, because I mother everybody – it’s who I am. At work they say  ‘Oh go and see Nana, and Nana will look after you. And I do.

“If there’s a big leaving party, I’ll sort it out. It’s who I am.”

But with such a busy work schedule, exercising and looking after everyone else, does she ever get time to rest?

“No, I don’t like it,” she declares. “I’ll rest when I’m dead.”

Lisa Riley is supporting the GenesisCare new Lung Cancer Rapid Response Pathway which will provide patients with a diagnosis in the fastest time possible.