During Julie Hesmondhalgh’s 16 happy years as one of the best-loved characters on Coronation Street, only one thing was missing: the ambition to try something new.
She used to joke she would die playing Hayley Cropper as she became part of the furniture on set and part of the family for viewers across the country.
But though she enjoyed this comfortable stability she found that she was losing her will to try other roles.
She says: “It was such a day job, it was something I went and did and then came home to my family, so I hadn’t really thought of myself as an actor.
“A lot of people think about the way I came and left Coronation Street with the fairly sensational soap storylines, but in the 16 years in between there was a lot of pottering around.
“I’d lost all ambition, any sort of thoughts about doing anything else, I was so happy there.”
Julie, 52, joined the cast in 1998 and Hayley’s memorable moments included coming out as a trans woman, falling in love with cafe owner Roy, and being arrested for kidnapping their foster son.
She initially saw herself staying on the cobbles “forever” like Bill Roache, who has played Ken Barlow on the ITV soap since it began in 1960.
“I never intended to leave,” she says. “I used to joke that I’d be there for the 100th anniversary.
“When new cast members would join I’d introduce myself by saying, ‘I’m Julie, they’ll carry me out of here in a box’.”
She finally left in an emotional assisted dying storyline in 2014 – and her castmates teased her by quoting her “carried out in a box” line back at her.
Her departure came two years after she took time off in 2012 for a role in touring stage production Black Roses as Sylvia, mum of Sophie Lancaster who was murdered in Bacup, Lancs, in 2007.
Julie says: “Doing that made me realise there was other work I wanted to do, other stories I wanted to tell.”
Reluctantly she decided it was time to leave Corrie and spread her wings.
“I thought long and hard about it but took the plunge,” she says. “I was really devastated when I left, even though it was my decision. I do miss Hayley still. I get such a thrill when she’s still talked about in Coronation Street.”
Julie grew up in Accrington, Lancashire, before studying at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.
She was once told she would always be a character actor and would not get much work until she was middle-aged.
There were small roles on shows such as The Bill and Victoria Wood’s 1994 TV movie, Pat and Margaret. She even tried for a role in 1995 hit Braveheart, when she was hurried in to an audition with Hollywood star Mel Gibson for the role of “toothless girl at wedding”.
Julie says: “I had more than my fair share of failure in my 20s, when I emerged from years of making fringe theatre and finally got an agent and started having auditions for paid gigs.
“I walked in and I had to just go at Mel and shout. He looked bewildered. I didn’t get the part, but for a long time that was the pinnacle of my acting career.”
But at the age of 27 she landed her Corrie role. Hayley was originally written as a short-term character, but Julie and David Neilson, who played Roy Cropper, had such powerful on-screen chemistry that she was kept in the show.
Julie says: “Hayley was meant to be the first in a series of disastrous dates for Roy. But people really got behind the relationship. They wanted us to succeed.”
Since leaving Coronation Street, has gone on to have high-profile roles in shows such as Broadchurch and Happy Valley.
Her new book, An Actor’s Alphabet, is full of advice for those starting out in the industry. Part memoir, part guide, it has advice on how to look after mental health, cope with failure and deal with body image issues.
Julie says: “I’m quite a unique mixture of being quite long in the tooth in the industry, with many years of experience, but also at the same time really new to the world of it and still quite wide-eyed. Generally I’m a very positive person but I do spend time worrying about where I am in the industry, or whether I’m as a far ahead as I want to be.”
In her book, Julie candidly talks about her body image worries, which came to her attention when she was playing rape survivor Trish Winterman in the third season of Broadchurch in 2017.
“I shocked myself at my own internalised misogyny,” she writes.
“I worried that the public would struggle to believe that anyone would rape someone who looked like me: an ordinary middle-aged woman with an ordinary body.”
Julie adds: “None of us are immune to body image issues, I don’t think, particularly in the acting industry which is still geared towards appearance. I think we need to claim it back – there’s a joy in seeing people of different sizes on TV, we should celebrate differences.”
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Away from acting, Julie is also involved with several charitable organisations. She set up her Facebook fundraising page 500 Acts of Kindness in 2017, encouraging members to donate £1 a week. They can nominate individuals, families or organisations that need help, and each Friday four or five of these are given £500. The group has given over £100,000 away since it started.
Julie says the number of people being recommended has risen massively amid the cost of living crisis.
She adds: “I knew as soon as October came it would start to pick up. People can’t believe it when we pick them – that £500 has saved lives.
“But we always say we are like a sticking plaster on a gaping wound. I don’t want 500 Acts of Kindness to have to exist – I’m a socialist and want to tax rich people and share it out.
“At the moment there is a feeling of absolute despondency at the state of affairs. It now feels like it’s up to us to help people because there’s no recourse in government at all at the moment.”
Julie will be in a play in New York in the new year, when she is also set to star in new ITV comedy drama You & Me.
She says: “When I left Corrie, I just wanted to be a jobbing actor. Since then, it’s transcended any expectations I’ve had. It’s been more than I’ve ever hoped for. I take everything one day at a time, and I’m very grateful. It’s been a rich and lovely time.”
- An Actor’s Alphabet: An A to Z of Some Stuff I’ve Learnt and Some Stuff I’m Still Learning by Julie Hesmondhalgh is published by Nick Hern Books is out now, £9.99
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