From McDonald’s manager to soap star
The soap’s newest star tells Vickie Scullard how she finally made it on to the cobbles
HER character only made her Coronation Street debut last week and has already ruffled a few feathers – but for actress Kimberly Hart Simpson, it’s been a long road to get to her goal.
The 33-year-old star has made her Weatherfield debut as Nicky Wheatley – the new love interest of widower Daniel Osbourne. Nicky first appeared just over a week ago after Adam Barlow talked Daniel into going out to encourage him to try and move on following the death of his wife Sinead in October.
But Nicky revealed the bombshell that she is a sex worker and is set to be a feature in Daniel’s life, meaning we’ll be seeing a lot more of Kimberly in Coronation Street. While it’s exciting for any actor to join the ITV soap, for Kimberly it is extra special because it took her a decade of auditions – and a string of quirky jobs – to land her dream role.
You may recognise Kimberly playing Beverley in Hollyoaks earlier this year, and she has also appeared in the Sky One comedy Mount Pleasant.
But Corrie was her goal – and over the years she has auditioned for a number of roles on the ITV soap.
“I recently looked through my backlog of Coronation Street auditions and I could have been there for weeks,” she said.
“I remember the latest one that I went for was a Lolly, which was Kate’s old friend.
“At one point I was in talks about playing Maddie but then she was going to be a lot younger and I was slightly over the age threshold for that part.
“There were also quite a lot of one or two-episode roles I went for.
“After a while I did this bold thing – I don’t know if I recommend it for other people to do it – I said to my agent: ‘I don’t want to go for any small parts there, will do one or two-episode parts anywhere else, I don’t mind. But Corrie, it has to be something substantial’.”
Kimberly has worked a number of jobs to help pay the bills – she’s worked at Fitness First, been a manager at Oldham’s McDonald’s restaurant and also created stage decorations using her recently discovered gift for sewing.
Growing up in Rhyl, North Wales, Corrie was a fixture - her parents both loved watching it, and she joked ‘no-one dared to ring’ while it was on TV.
So much so that from a young age it was Kimberly’s goal to get her feet on the famous cobbles.
She says her dad, Kevin, who died in 2007, would have been especially proud.
“My mum is a through and through Welsh person whereas my dad was born in Oldham. So I’ve got half and half and I think that’s the reason I can tap into northern culture. They both loved Corrie.
“But in particular, I think dad got so excited about the prospect of me being on it.
“It would have been a brilliant moment to tell him, but I know that, you know – he will know.”