Sue Johnston of Coronation Street has said that it is a “privilege to grow old” after losing some of her peer friends over the years.
She added that she has no plans to retire and although she regrets feeling ‘tired’, she is still ‘excited’ by acting ‘after all this time’.
During her 40-year acting career, the star has played two different roles in the much-loved Coronation Street, once in 1982 when she appeared as Mrs. Chadwick and then returned in 2012 as Gloria.
She is also known for her role in the 1980s soap opera Channel 4’s Brookside, where she tackled gritty stories as Sheila, drawing on her own personal experience of her near-death sexual assault, and for playing Barbara Royle in BBC comedy The Royle. Family.
Speaking on the Chatabix podcast, he said: ‘I’m 80 this year, it’s so weird, it’s so weird. It’s very strange.
‘It’s a privilege to grow old’: Sue Johnston, 79, of Coronation Street, has revealed she has no plans to retire after a 40-year acting career but regrets feeling tired (file image)
‘You get tired, but I think, ‘Why am I tired?’… I talk to my friends who are the same age. [and] It’s because I’m old.
“It’s a strange time and when I complain I have to think of the friends I’ve lost along the way who weren’t allowed to grow old. it’s a privilege
‘I get more tired when I’m bored. When I’m away on a job I’m awake and ready.
‘There’s something in my head that loves to do the job. It still excites me after all this time.
Speaking on the podcast, he added that one of the “great things” about getting older is the ability to speak your mind.
She added: ‘I speak my mind to people now.
‘I don’t hold back. I feel comfortable with life. I worry about things, but everyone does, no matter how old they are.
Sue’s first major role was playing Sheila Grant on the Channel 4 soap opera Brookside starting in 1982. Since the show became available to stream, she has watched it and says it’s best to see yourself wrinkle-free.
Back in the day: The TV actress, who turns 80 this year, added that while she gets ‘tired’, she feels that getting older is a ‘privilege’ (played as Mrs Chadwick in Corrie in 1982)
Long-running: Over the course of her 40-year acting career, the star has played two different roles in the much-loved Coronation Street, once in 1982 when she appeared as Mrs. Chadwick and then back in 2012 as Gloria
She said: ‘All I could do was keep zooming in on my face because I didn’t have any lines. I started at 38 and was described in the press as a middle-aged sex bomb.
Last year, Sue detailed how a sexual assault she suffered in 1970 at age 27 continues to cause stress in her daily life.
The actress confessed that she has the “instinct” to flinch and step to the side when she feels fast movement nearby, and she fears she will never get over it.
She said Mirror: ‘I can’t, even now, 50 years later, have someone run after me. I have to step aside. I think it’s just an instinct.
“People do things and walk away from them with no idea of the impact and horror of how they have affected people’s lives. And it does, it changes your life.
In her 2011 autobiography, Things I Couldn’t Tell My Mother, the soap opera star revealed that she was convinced her attacker would kill her.
Recognizable: She is also known for her role in the 1980s soap opera Channel 4’s Brookside, where she tackled gritty stories as Sheila, drawing on her own personal experience of her near-death sexual assault.
Fortunately, she fought him off before escaping, however the emotional toll has had a dramatic effect on her sanity decades later.
Sue recently recounted how she feared “reality would intersect with fantasy” when a similar attack was made on her character as Corrie on the show in 1986.
During an appearance on Extraordinary Escapes last week, she told Sandi Toksvig: “I was sexually assaulted when I was 27. And I never talked about it.”
“When they called me and said they were going to do this story, I told them that it happened exactly how they attacked me.
‘I was so afraid that reality would intersect with fantasy, that I couldn’t control myself. But it actually released something in me that I was able to talk about it. It was good therapy for me.