They ANSWER!
Cathy’s put her barriers up since being outed as Weatherfield’s No 1 troll – however, star Melanie is open to answering all your probing queries…
“Have you ever been subject to online abuse from a troll in real life?”
Not really. Early on in my career, I’d get the odd nasty letter, via my agent, but nothing like what happens now online.
Even when Cathy got together with Roy after Hayley died, people on the whole were very kind. It helped that Julie Hesmondhalgh
[Hayley Cropper] posted
a good luck tweet, and wished me all the best. She probably wasn’t aware of how important or powerful
that was, she just did it.
“What’s it like having Peter Gunn [Brian] as a screen partner?”
It’s a joy. We do have a lot of fun. A lot of our scenes together have been comic in the past – but as you can see in the coming weeks, there is a great love between Cathy and Brian. It’ll be more dramatic as she pushes him away. Peter and I are very professional, obviously, but we do manage to have as much fun as we can with what the guys have written for us. It’s been lovely, and a great honour to be able to come into the Kabin, which is an iconic set, and it’s given us a nice base to be involved with a lot of the community.
“Which Corrie fella would you like Cathy to be with if she and Brian split up?”
Well, I would say for handsomeness we’d definitely have to go for Charlie De Melo [Imran]. He’s like a young Omar Sharif! I keep saying that he needs to be in films, because he’s absolutely gorgeous. You know, it’s quite good when you get a bit older because you can say things like that. When you are in your 60s, you can say, “You are gorgeous, you!” Charlie is a cutie.
“Cathy previously had a problem with hoarding – is your house full of stuff, or is it clutter-free?”
As I’ve got older, I’ve absolutely stripped everything out of my life and gone minimalist. When my dad passed away, he was a bit of a hoarder and having to clear his place and put it all in the bin literally traumatised me! I thought, “I am not doing that to my children!”, and binned loads of stuff. I think your mind gets cluttered when you have a cluttered flat, too. Stuff really get on my nerves these days!
“You’ve appeared in so many big shows. What do people like to talk to you about when they see you out?”
The most frequent one is Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. It’s been such a long time since we made it, but it’s the type of show that people really watch again and again and again. I think that’s why they like to ask me about it. Also, I have to say Waterloo Road too. That had such a strong fan base, and those fans are still loyal, and I get quite a lot of comments about that.
“Aveline in Bread had such a crazy wardrobe. Did you enjoy wearing those outfits?”
Yeah, it was fantastic. The costume designer would be so excited every episode to show me what he’d put together. During the last series of Bread, I was pregnant with my youngest daughter and she was due on the day of my last studio recording. And I remember those heels
I wore were like hell, and I’m sure I permanently damaged myself. It was tough doing that pregnant. I got a few comments actually, saying that it was obvious I was wearing a fake bump because it didn’t look real. I thought that was hilarious, as it was my daughter Molly in there!
“Do you have fond memories of playing Bob Hope’s girlfriend Avril Kent in
Emmerdale?” Yeah, I enjoyed doing that. Everyone was really welcoming, and obviously it’s all outside in the country – plus, Tony Audenshaw [Bob] was great to work with. I didn’t know if I was going to stay on it a lot longer, to be honest, because there was potential for Avril to come back. But obviously it didn’t work out like that.
I did enjoy sparring with Viv, and Avril was quite a comic character, she was brash and brassy, so she was fun to play.
“What is the most surprising thing that Coronation Street viewers might not know about you?”
Probably the fact that I take keep-fit quite seriously. I always have. I used to go to the gym in London and I always had a membership, but I’ve got rid of it now and started running outside and I like it better. I had a hip replacement when I was 50. I was doing Waterloo Road and I had a stick for two years, and for the last year it was just torturous. We filmed three series back-to-back, and I didn’t want to lose my job. So, I just carried on as much as I could, but I was on loads of painkillers. When I had my hip replacement, it literally changed my life, as the pain was gone. I can always spot someone who needs their hip doing, as they have a kind of waddle and I recall the agony. The op enabled me to run 5k twice a week!
“What’s it like working with actor Peter Gunn [Brian]?”