Glen Wallace has praised Coronation Street for leading the way in representing Northern Irish actors on screen.
The actor made his debut in the ITV soap on Friday night as Lucas, a business man and former flame of Carla Connor.
Glen, 44, is no stranger to a role in a soap with Corrie marking his third appearance in a major continuing drama following former parts in Hollyoaks and EastEnders.
So after a few years away, he is loving being back in the "soap fraternity".
"I'm loving it. I've had the good fortune of being involved in a couple of the continuing dramas as a guest and as a regular and it's one of those things that your mum always told you, it's not until you go away from something or that you lose something that you realise how much you missed it.
"So to be back in that soap fraternity, in that soap family, is amazing and to be in with the Corrie family has been phenomonal."
Manchester has been a 'second home' to Glen, who was born in Ballymena but lived in Belfast from the age of one.
"I'm very fond of Manchester," he said. "I come back and forward between Belfast, London and my various homes.
"I have a season ticket at Old Trafford. Even the rain is the same. It never stops.
"So I see Manchester as a second home so to be welcomed into Weatherfield and to Manchester, I'm loving it.
"Ali [Alison King who plays Carla] and Chris [Gasgoine, who plays Peter] have been fantastic."
Glen was then quizzed on his family's reaction to the news that he was joining Corrie as it's 'massive' over there.
And the star praised one character on the soap for changing his perception as a kid looking to get into the acting world.
"I was thinking about this earlier and today's conversation about diversity and representation, growing up in Belfast there wasn't really an option of being an actor as a profession.
"You got a 'proper job' for want of a better word.
"But when you grew up with Charlie Lawson on the telly as Jim McDonald, there was representation for me as a working class lad from Belfast growing up and going, 'I know him'.
"Not actually know him but as in I know that person, I know who that guy is and if he can do it, I can go do it."
He later added: "On the jobs I've worked on I've lived in Liverpool when I was shooting Hollyoaks, I lived in Glasgow when I shot River City and now I'm in Manchester.
"It's good, working-class dock cities where people say hello to you in the street and have an opinion and don't mind sharing it.
"Like I said earlier, it's definitely a home from home."
As for his family, Glenn says his mum, Sandra, is "beside herself" and he text her something "along the lines of, 'I can die happy now'."
Joking that he'd have to switch his phone off due to the amount of texts he might receive from his mum, Glen added that Corrie is a sense of "normal" in current times.
"I think we're all craving it. It's just that bit of normality in this abnormal time that we're in now," he said.
"As soon as you hear that theme tune, you can sit and relax because everything is ok.
"So for half an hour or an hour, you have your friends with you. You can sit back and watch their lives."
