Nancy Osborne (also Hayton and Dean) is a fictional character from the British Channel 4 soap opera Hollyoaks, played by Jessica Fox. The character first appeared on 6 July 2005. Since the character's inception she has been involved in many notable storylines such as a love triangle; coping with the death of her sister Becca (Ali Bastian); marrying Jake Dean (Kevin Sacre); drug abuse; domestic violence; being the victim of two attempted rapes by Jake and Finn O'Connor (Keith Rice); marrying Darren Osborne (Ashley Taylor Dawson); suffering a miscarriage; prematurely giving birth to Darren's son, Oscar Osborne, who is deaf; an addiction to painkillers; a highly-publicised storyline where Sienna Blake (Anna Passey) attempts to steal Darren and her family away from her; getting brain damage after an attack from Sienna; an affair with Rick Spencer (Victor Gardener); and a fling with Rick's son Robbie Roscoe (Charlie Wernham). Her later storylines have seen the character be diagnosed with multiple sclerosis; discovering Darren's affair with her good friend, Mandy Richardson (Sarah Jayne Dunn), leading to the couple's separation; a relationship with Kyle Kelly; miscarrying Kyle's baby after being stabbed; and dealing with Kyle's suicide. In the character's early stages, she was portrayed as a less conventional character compared to the rest of the Hollyoaks teenagers. Character creation and casting Nancy was created as the younger sister of Becca, who arrives to visit. The character was initially only intended to feature in three episodes. Auditions were held for the role with actress Jessica Fox securing the role. Fox auditioned for the role and was given the part. She began filming the next day for which she said she was "completely underprepared" for and "scared out of [her] witts". She was initially contracted for three episodes but on Fox's second day of filming, she was given more scripts and asked to stay on longer which she agreed to, before she was again given more scripts. She has since remained on the serial. Fox extended her contract in January 2012 and predicted that the year would feature Nancy's "biggest storyline" so far. Character development Characterisation On Nancy's personality, Fox described her as different from other Hollyoaks girls, dubbing her the "anti-Hollyoaks girl". She said that Nancy has "always got some kind of bitchy comeback for everyone". She explained that Nancy "says that you don't have to be the skinny blonde or the skinny brunette, you