Gaz Bennett

Gaz Bennett
Hollyoaks character
Portrayed by	Joel Goonan
Duration	2008-11
First appearance	25 November 2008
Last appearance	11 November 2011
Introduced by	Bryan Kirkwood
Classification	Former; regular
Profile
Occupation	Glass collecter (2011) Merchandise seller (2011)

Gary "Gaz" Bennett is a fictional character from the long-running Channel 4 soap opera Hollyoaks, played by Joel Goonan. He debuted on-screen during the episode airing on 25 November 2008. Goonan took a break from filming during 2010, and returned on-screen on 19 January 2011. Goonan announced his permanent departure from Hollyoaks in October 2011. He made his final appearance on 11 November 2011.

Goonan took a short break from filming during 2010, returning to filming in winter. A spokesperson described the scenes stating: "Much to Anita's concern, Gaz will be making a shocking return to the village in the weeks ahead." His return scenes aired in January 2011.

Gaz is introduced as the leader of a racist hoodie gang. Gaz has already shown his hatred of black, Asian and bisexual characters including Ash Roy (Junade Khan), Anita Roy (Saira Choudhry), Ravi Roy (Stephen Uppal), Lauren Valentine (Dominique Jackson) and Calvin Valentine (Ricky Whittle). Despite his "hard" personality, Gaz is seen to be vulnerable when Zak Ramsey (Kent Riley) beats him up while he was on his own. Gaz got his comeuppance in the media dubbed 'Super September', in which Gaz was attacked and left in a coma.

Viewers of Hollyoaks asked Joel Goonan on the official website why he thinks Gaz is bullying Anita. Goonan replied: "I don't actually know! I don't think Gaz has actually got that many friends — he's got people who follow him, but he hasn't got many friends. He's quite disturbed really. I don't think it's necessarily to do with Anita being Asian or anything like that, I think it's just the fact that she's really vulnerable and Gaz knows he can take advantage of her at any time. It's nothing to do with her skin colour, its about Gaz seeing her as a really weak person. He knows he can bully her and she'll be too scared to do anything back to him." Goonan was also asked if he found portraying an "evil" character difficult. Replying to this, he said: "Not really. Well I wasn't like that in school or anything, I've never been a bully. But I've grown up in quite a rough part of Manchester so I've been surrounded by people like that since I've been in school. So it was quite easy to portray that type of character because I've been around those kind of people for years. I've sort of found myself mimicking people I used to know."

...
Wikipedia