Playing Corrie loudmouth Janice Battersby took a real-life toll on actress Vicky Entwistle.
For 14 years, soap fans were gripped by feisty Janice’s antics – but a decade after leaving the show, Vicky reveals that she had to quit for her own wellbeing.
The 52-year-old says: “Corrie was only the third job I’d done and you go from being yourself to this loud, obnoxious woman that’s showing up in half the country’s living rooms.
“I wasn’t prepared for the attention. It was like being dropped in the sea when you can’t really swim.
“By the time I left, I was desperate to find some peace.
“It was a brilliant job in so many ways but by the end, it was hard to know where Janice ended and I began.
“She was so feisty, it became physically exhausting to play her – hours on end shouting and screaming at people.
“I’d think at the end of filming, ‘How the hell am I going to drive home after all that?’ I’d have to go somewhere and calm myself down.
“Those rows, all that drama… I was going through it physically in this full-on, relentless schedule.
“It almost felt like I was becoming Janice. People presumed I was like her in real-life and I even started to worry myself. I’d think, ‘Am I this gobby? Am I this rude?’ In the end, it wore me down. I was exhausted.
“I know it wasn’t exactly life down the pits, but I was getting more and more anxious and I had to get my life back. In the end, I just knew I couldn’t do it any more.”
Vicky recalls the night a group of men lifted her up in the street and carried her into a Manchester bar – an example of how her fame had become a burden.
She adds: “I found that side of things very intense.
"There were something like 25 million people watching the show back then and if I’m honest, I found it a bit scary.”
Janice was head of the rowdy Battersby clan – wife to Les, mum to Toyah, stepmum to Leanne.
Since quitting Corrie, Vicky, who lives in Lancashire with her set designer hubby Andy Chapman, has been in Ackley Bridge, Holby City and Celebrity Big Brother, as well as West End show Les Miserables.
But she is quick to quash rumours of a return to the cobbles.
“I can’t see it,” she says. “I was knackered before they even added an extra episode, so I don’t think I’d keep up.
“I’m happy with how things worked out.
"We might not fly off to Barbados every year but I have a home and a husband I love. That’s all anyone could ask for.”
