Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
I almost gave up acting for love
Line of Duty Vicky on doomed affair
SHE is one of TV’s biggest stars – and as Detective Inspector Kate Fleming she has been enthralling millions of viewers.
But Line of Duty’s Vicky McClure today reveals that she almost gave up her acting dreams... for love.
Now 35, she tells how during her 20s, she found herself trapped in an “unhappy relationship”.
She says: “I was young. I gave up acting. I gave up everything for a whole year just because of him.
“I thought, ‘I need to focus on being here’ and I moved to live in a place where I was unhappy. But it was all because I thought it was making him happy.
“It was a rebellious thing, where I was like, ‘Nothing is happening anyway. No one was giving me a job. I am not going to become a dancer’.
BESOTTED
“I thought, ‘Sod it, I’ll give it all up’. I was besotted. That was all that really mattered to me.
“I look back and go, ‘Woah. What an idiot’. But it’s great because I’ve learnt from it and I’ll never do it again. If you love someone, let them fly.”
Vicky won’t reveal the name of her ex. But today she is only looking forward. She is now engaged to director Jonny Owen, 47, who she describes as “a man, a proper grown-up”.
And she believes this relationship has underlined just how bad previous relationships really were.
Speaking on podcast How To Fail with Elizabeth Day, she says: “It’s hard growing up and trying to meet people and trying to sustain a grown-up relationship.
“I moved in with certain people when I was younger and it was hard – to run a house when you are not really grown-up enough yet to run that house, to have those responsibilities.
“Deep down you know you are in a relationship that wasn’t right for you.
“Also, you don’t want to tell your friends that your relationship has broken down because it’s embarrassing.
“All these silly little things and the minute you are out of it, the feeling of relief.
“When you are young, you just can’t control your emotions and everything gets a bit too crazy.”
Reflecting on her exes, she adds: “That’s part of life and I look back on all the guys I was with and I don’t wish any of them any harm, and they weren’t bad people. “I don’t have any ill feeling towards anyone. But at the time, I was failing myself because I wasn’t being honest with myself.”
I’ve got to 35 now. I don’t think it’s easy to say to a girl in their 20s, ‘Be careful about this, be careful about that’. You’ve got to kind of work through it yourself.”
She says she wishes she had met Jonny years ago so she could have “spent more time with him”.
She adds: “He gets me and there is no need for bulls***.”
Vicky says that away from her rollercoaster onscreen role, she loves the simple pleasures – having “a Saturday clean” and doing “a big shop”.
She says: “I do like the feeling of Jonny coming home and going, ‘Oh the place looks lovely’.
“It’s not like I’m doing it because he needs me to do it or wants me to do it.
“I want to do it because it’s nice and I know he appreciates certain things.”
I was an idiot, but I’ve learnt from it and I’ll never do it again
VICKY ON HOW CAREER CAME TO ABRUPT HALT I do like a simple life ...cleaning and doing a big shop VICKY ON LIFE AWAY FROM THE CAMERAS