EXCLUSIVE: Emmerdale’s Caroline Harker on the ‘cruel’ people in her past that helped her take on evil role

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Actress Caroline Harker plays evil Dr Caitlin Todd in Emmerdale

As evil Dr Caitlin Todd she has been bullying Emmerdale’s trainee doctor Jacob Gallagher so mercilessly that he reveals his ordeal to his shocked wife, Sarah, through anguished tears. And when Jacob (Joe-Warren Plant) goes to make a formal complaint at work, he’s informed that his tormentor got there first – submitting a dossier of damning evidence about him, including voice recordings.

Caroline Harker, 60, who joined the soap last year, says she watched the behaviour of world leaders to fine tune her bullying skills. She says: “She [Dr Todd] reminds me of certain world leaders. They say the unsayable, then do the unsayable. They have no fear of consequences and no empathy. They are used to getting what they want and will bully people to get it.”

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As an actress, Caroline is always storing up experiences, so she can draw on them for the characters she plays. She adds: “I’ve come across bullies and I’ve put them in my library in my mind. I went to a boarding school convent when I was 10 and a few of the nuns had cruel streaks. It all gets stored.”

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Jacob Gallagher [JOE-WARREN PLANT] heads to see Doctor Todd [CAROLINE HARKER] and asks if he can have a word. Before long Jacob decides to raise a formal complaint with her employers.

Londoner Caroline comes from an acting dynasty, going back centuries. Her mum Polly Adams played Mrs. Brown in the 1990s television series Just William, her late father Richard Owens appeared in The Avengers and The Mayor of Casterbridge. Her sister Susannah Harker was in Pride and Prejudice and was nominated for a BAFTA in 1990 for her role in House of Cards.

Caroline’s great-grandfather Gordon Harker appeared in films in the 1920s and 1930s. And her great-great grandfather Joseph Harker was a child actor, before becoming a West End scene painter and theatrical designer, while her great-great-great grandfather William was a theatre actor, as was his wife, Maria.

Caroline says: “On mum’s side they go back generations. If your parents are actors, they just seem to have such a good time. And the people that you meet through them are such fun to be around.I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.”

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Caroline, her husband Anthony Calf and their two daughters, Cecilia and Anemone(Image: Getty Images)

Married to actor Anthony Calf, who she met on the set of the 1993 TV adaptation of Riders, their two daughters, Cecilia and Anemone, are also in the business; one as a theatre designer and the other working in an agent’s office.

Yet, despite such an impressive acting pedigree, Caroline -whose big break came in 1992, playing PC Hazel Wallace opposite Sir David Jason in A Touch of Frost – was nervous when she first set foot in Emmerdale. She says: “It was like the first day at school every day. I felt a need and desire to be good at my job – I put myself under pressure.”

A senior doctor at Hotten General Hospital, as well as bullying Jacob at work, Dr Todd is renting a property close to his in the village, where she can torment him further. Caroline says: “She’s like a cat with a mouse. It’s bullying at its worst and she knows how to reel him in and then hurt him again.”

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Lucy Speed, Caroline Harker, Laura Main and Elizabeth Ayodele, stars of Steel Magnolias(Image: DAILY EXPRESS)

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Caroline Harker as WPC Hazel Wallace in ‘A Touch of Frost’(Image: ITV/Shutterstock)

And she has a second victim in her sights – Charity Dingle (Emma Atkins). Threatening to expose that Jacob isn’t baby Leila’s biological father, she proceeds to blackmail her. “It’s a power game. She knows some information about Charity, so she’ll give it a go. She’s not afraid of anyone,” says Caroline.

While she has played confident women, including Coronation Street lawyer Alicia Davenport, who prosecuted Frank Foster in 2012 after he was accused of raping factory boss Carla Connor, and White House Chief of Staff in The Agency with Richard Gere (2024) this is the first time Caroline has been cast as a bully.

While she says working with Richard Gere was “exciting,” she loves playing Dr Todd. She says: “You have to be brave. You can’t be a shadow of the character.” Revealing that the doctor’s vindictiveness knows no bounds, she adds: “She’s unpredictable. That’s the thing about these very nasty people, their energy for doing bad is enormous.”