Emmerdale's Natalie J. Robb and Jeff Hordley slap each other

Natalie J. Robb and Jeff Hordley slap each other on the bottom in between scenes.

The \'Emmerdale\' actress - who plays Moira Barton in the long-running soap - has revealed that she and her co-star, who portrays her on/off lover Cain Dingle, like to get cheeky in between takes because they believe it helps with the chemistry on screen.

Speaking on \'This Morning\' on Thursday (01.02.18), Natalie said: "You have to have a familiarity between the characters so people really believe that they\'re a couple. We do have fun, we try things like I\'ll slap his bum and he\'ll slap me."

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Jeff - who is married to Zoe Henry - explained: "Well couples do things, when we get on yeah. We always get on, we have a laugh.

"We try and put that in a scenes because it\'s all so dark. It\'s just a little slap."

And, although the pair like to have a joke, their scenes last year were quite "dark" but Natalie, 43, made the decision to cut out some of her crying scenes from the script.

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She said: "I cut some bits out of the script because sometimes it\'ll say: \'Moira cries\' because that\'s not always their response to everything that happens. People deal with things in different ways but also from an audience point of view, they don\'t always want to see someone cry all the time.

"It\'s something I\'ve learnt over time, I wasn\'t very good at it when I was young, but over time I\'ve got better with experience and if it\'s written well then it\'s easier.

Jeff, 47, added: "I think it\'s more powerful when you save those moments because sometimes writers can put: \'He cries, she cries.\' And you\'re like: \'Oh, like that?\' "