Bradley Riches has opened up on the “amazing” experience of playing Emmerdale’s first neurodivergent character. In May 2025, Riches joined the soap as a new regular character named Lewis Barton, the long-lost younger brother of Ross Barton and the show’s first autistic character. Speaking to The Independent at the BAFTA TV Awards on Sunday (10 May), the actor said that he thinks it is “really cool to be like a role model to the community.”