Samia: Corrie’s so busy my skater hubby is looking after the kids
Street star on pregnancy drama
CORONATION Street’s Maria Connor announces she is carrying bad boy Gary Windass’s baby tomorrow.
But the actress who plays her admits her role is costing her precious time with her own little ones.
So Samia Longchambon’s ice skater hubby Sylvain is doing the lion’s share of childcare for Freya, ten, and fouryear-old Yves.
“I’ve been suffering massively with mum guilt,” said Samia, 37.
“I’ve been super busy with work so at the moment I’m getting up and leaving before my kids wake up and getting in at bedtime. It’s really hard.”
Loving
Samia’s other half Sylvain, 39, has scaled back his Dancing on Ice commitments to concentrate on their family in Cheshire.
“Sylvain is brilliant. He is really good with the kids,” she said. “He is still doing a bit on Dancing on Ice – he’s doing the pro numbers this year. Even though he’s not partnered with a celebrity, he’s still involved.
“He’s fine. It just didn’t work out contractually because he was possibly going to have to be based in London for four months. The show is on at a weekend and he would have been training in London with his partner during the week. I’m so busy, we couldn’t physically have done it, with the kids.
“So he’s kind of taking a year out. But he’s great, because he’s still doing the pro stuff.
“Most of the time he can be there with the kids. He’s still down in London a bit.”
Samia and Frenchman Sylvain got together when they were paired on Dancing on Ice in 2013.
They wed at Delamere Manor, Cheshire, in 2016 and share son Yves as well as Samia’s daughter to her ex-husband, property developer Matt Smith. She is one of Coronation Street’s best-known faces, having starred
in the ITV soap from age of 17, in 2000. Samia is set to be at the heart of Corrie’s explosive Christmas storyline, when hairdresser Maria’s boyfriend Gary, played by Mikey North, gets caught up in a shootout.
She said: “It’s special as an actor to stay with a character for this long.
“It is my whole adult life, since I was 17. To grow up alongside the character you’re playing is quite a unique experience.
“To still be loving it as much as I am, after all these years, I feel honoured and privileged.
a It’s such special place to work. And it’s amazing to be getting great storylines.”
But she admits she’s looking forward to a very relaxed Christmas, saying: “It’ll be nice to have a couple of weeks at Christmas to do nothing, just be at home and catch up.
“In the New Year, we’ll possibly go to
France to see Sylvain’s family.
I’m trying not to make plans.
It’s quite nice not having to stick to anything and just see what happens. I just want to chill as much as possible.”
Samia has spoken about her battle with anxiety and debilitating panic attacks in the past.
And she told how she found a unique way of coping with it at work.
“I try to do yoga in my dressing room when I can,” she said.
“Even if it’s just 15 minutes in my lunch hour. If I try and do that every day, it really helps.”
Coronation Street returns tomorrow at 7.30pm and 8.30pm, ITV.
‘LOVING IT’: Samia has been on Corrie for nearly 20 years now