Coronation Street star Luca Toolan has described his character Mason's upcoming stabbing storyline as "really intense".

In recent months the former bad boy has begun to carve out a new life for himself on the street, having been taken in by Tim (Joe Duttine) and Sally (Sally Dynevor), much to the chagrin of his no-good brothers Matty (Seamus McGoff) and Logan (Harry Lowbridge).

In scenes airing in early January, Mason hands copper Lisa (Vicky Myers) a key piece of evidence - a World War II hat - that implicates his siblings in the murder of Lisa's wife Becky.

"That was something that was from Becky's flat," Toolan explained, "and basically just pins my brothers to the scene of the crime and connects them to her murder.

"The person that murdered Becky was the person that burgled her house so as soon as Mason finds that [hat], he knows he can pin them for this."

Mason's decision to dob his brothers in comes with consequences, however, and a vicious attack ensues which leaves him bleeding out from stab wounds in the Precinct.

"Oh, that was intense, really intense," Toolan continued. "I worked my butt off for that and just prepared and prepared and prepared. We had a vision of it being somewhat like the Saving Private Ryan scene. It was very well-written in the script.

"I did a lot of research on that to see how you would breathe, what the symptoms of that would be, how it would look.

"And then I was just researching different things like 'does it hurt to get stabbed?' Surprisingly, a lot of the information that I was reading was that you don't feel it, which spooked me, but then that changes the way that you play it, because it's more of a shock and focus on the breath, as opposed to screaming and agony."

Coronation Street continues Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 7am on ITVX and at 8pm on ITV1.