Coronation Street Blog: Julie Hesmondhalgh: The pros and cons of leaving Corrie

Julie Hesmondhalgh, who played Hayley Cropper in Coronation Street, has gone to have a wonderful career in stage and screen since leaving the cobbles.

She's soon to star in a new ITV drama called The Trouble with Maggie Cole. To promote the show, Julie's interviewed in The Mirror where she talks about leaving Corrie and says she wrote a list of pros and cons of leaving the show before she took off and hung up Hayley's red anorak for the final time.

She said: "When I started to think about leaving Corrie I wrote a list of the pros and cons for leaving. Very high on the list of cons was how that show keeps you young and alive and engaged with the world. You’re thrown together with everybody from babies to 80-year-olds who have been in the business long before you were even a twinkle in your mum and dad’s eye. It’s very good for your mind and your spirit. That’s why all these actors in it last for ever. It’s like they’ve drunk some elixir. I thought, ‘I’m gonna pack it in and then my memory is going to go and I’ll turn into an old crone within three weeks’.”

It's a good read and it's here.

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Glenda Young

Author of gritty, family saga novels with Headline