Being on Emmerdale is where I am meant to be
anything for granted.” After leaving school, Paula applied to eight drama schools.
She recalls: “It cost £40 a time to audition for them and also the cost of travel to London. My mum, bless her, put it all on her credit card but, sadly, I didn’t get accepted by any of them.”
Undeterred, she took a job in a coffee shop, saved up and then tried again the following year, this time getting a place at London’s Central School of Speech and Drama.
After graduating, she spent two years working in Harrods selling perfume while trying to get her big acting break. In 2009, she narrowly missed out on the role of David Platt’s girlfriend Zoe in ITV’S Corrie, before landing Kylie the following year.
During her six years on the cobbles, Kylie’s storylines included selling her son Max to her sister, an affair with husband David’s brother Nick Tilsley, drug addiction, the murder of Callum Logan and her tragic death by stabbing.
Since leaving, she has made guest appearances on television in Call the
Midwife and Father Brown but has mainly worked in theatre, including the UK tour of Kinky Boots. She says: “I’ve got an army of casting people who have backed me from the off but there are other people who, for whatever reason, don’t want to see you.
“That can be frustrating when you know you are so right for a part.
“But it’s just the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. I didn’t envisage myself doing as much stage work as I did but, actually, the way it pushed me out of my comfort zone was great.
“And while touring has taken me away from home, I wanted to show my children that Mum is going out to work. I’ve always tried to teach them that we have to do that in order to have things and sometimes that means I’ve got to go off for two weeks.”
Paula spends her spare time gardening, running, walking her dog and renovating her home on the Yorkshire/lancashire border.
She and actor husband Tom Shaw also run a drama school, Lane Shaw Academy, in Hebden Bridge.
The couple’s children, Arthur, nine, and Penny, seven, have the acting bug too. Both have appeared on TV in a Dairylea advert and Arthur was in 2023 film Starve Acre with Matt Smith. Paula says: “I’m really proud.
“But it’s not like we are pushing them or that there’s nepotism involved. It was an open call for the film and we never told anybody that we were Arthur’s parents. They do have a natural flair. Maybe one day they’ll be in a soap too – we’ll see!”
■ Emmerdale is on Virgin Media One weekdays at 7.30pm
There are people who don’t want to see you.. frustrating PAULA LANE ON TOUGH WORLD OF TV CASTING