Bhavna has made it, no head-butts about it...
CORONATION STREET star Bhavna Limbachia almost blew the biggest break of her life – by head-butting her co-star!
Bhavna joined the soap earlier this year as nurse Rana Habeeb and more drama this week surrounds her marriage to Qasim Akhtar’s Zeedan.
However, she’s told iN10 she feared she’d never make it on to the famous cobbles.
“I thought I’d totally blown my screen test,” said 32-year-old Bhavna.
“In one take I was supposed to kiss Qasim but I accidentally head-butted him instead. Also I also nearly tore his T-shirt off him.
“I remember thinking it really wasn’t going well. But then I was down in London auditioning for something else when I got a call telling me I had the part.
“I was about to go on the underground and I just froze and screamed. I couldn’t really celebrate until I’d been to the other audition but then it hit me: ‘I’m going to be on Coronation Street. This is real’.”
Luckily Qasim didn’t bear a grudge over the painful mishap and the pair’s warm friendship has translated on screen.
But it’s been a rocky road for the couple.
In tomorrow night’s episode, Rana’s parents arrive for a meal and their revelations about her previous boyfriends are a shock to Zeedan.
“He starts doubting everything and thinks he really doesn’t know anything about her,” explains Bhavna.
“He says he can’t marry her, she’s devastated and they have a huge row.”
But he later has second thoughts and shows up in full wedding outfit and begs her forgiveness and wants to get married there and then.
Bhavna says she’s had nothing but positive feedback.
“I think it’s a really good representation of second-generation Muslims struggling with their identity.
“There has been all the stuff about Zeedan not believing in sex before marriage and the break-ups that’s caused.
“I think it’s really important to reflect that on television today.”
Bhavna already had an impressive body of work before arriving in Weatherfield with Casualty, Doctors, Cuffs and Citizen Khan to her name.
If she’d followed the advice of her school careers adviser, though, she’d never have pursued an acting career.
Warnings about how she wouldn’t have a regular income and almost certainly faced spells of unemployment initially made Bhavna choose a different path altogether.
“I still loved being creative so I studied fashion design then went on to do a degree in costume design,” said Preston-born Bhavna, who lives with pals in Manchester when filming.
“But the more I worked backstage or behind the camera doing costumes the more I knew I still wanted to act.
“I knew I couldn’t regret something I didn’t do, so I turned down the next job I got for costumes.
“I moved home, got a 9-to-5 job working for Trading Standards while training at the Manchester School Of Acting one night a week.”
Bhavna landed an agent and has never looked back, with Citizen Khan the show she was best-known for before Corrie came calling.
In fact, she revealed she hasn’t had to choose between the two jobs.
She has just finished filming the fifth series of the sitcom, fitting in work on that as well as Corrie.
“I’m forever grateful to Citizen Khan which was my first job and opened so many doors for me,” she says.
“And the BBC and ITV have been very good in allowing me to film both.
“It doesn’t usually happen, but because I was already on the sitcom the producer at Corrie said she thought they could make it work
“They are filmed at MediaCity in Salford and there’s a bridge that connects the BBC and ITV.
“That bridge became my best friend as I ran across it every other day.”
Like many before her, Bhavna admits to first-day Corrie nerves – partly because she had to eat a sardine sandwich, something she loathes.
She has, though, got used to the attention and odd questions.
“People keep asking if Zeedan’s beard is sprayed on – honestly, it’s real.”
Coronation Street, Mon, Wed, Fri, ITV.