Sue Cleaver has played long-suffering Eileen Grimshaw for over 20 years - but fortunately her own life is drastically different.
The much-loved actress, 57, first rocked up on the cobbles as the Street Cars switchboard operator back in May 2000.
However, many fans will be surprised to know it wasn’t her first role in the ITV soap as five years before she had played a hospital nurse who was present when Daniel Osbourne was born.
In a bid to impress Corrie bosses and get the role as Eileen, Sue made fake calls to discover what voice they used when answering the phone.
Speaking to The Mirror last year, Sue explained: "Then I’d ring back and say: ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, I’ve got to cancel that cab.’ I’m amazed I'm not blacklisted around Manchester’s cab firms really."
Away from Corrie, Sue has an extremely busy life and an impressive second career that not many viewers know about.
While she was still filming, Sue started training as a psychotherapist and had to go through four years of therapy herself as part of the process.
Even her own son, Elliot Quinn, claimed she was "not the same person" after the experience.
"I've completely changed. I don't see things in the way I used to. Life isn't black and white," she explained on Loose Women in September 2015.
"I can see when someone is behaving badly and go: 'Right, what's really going on here. This is about fear, sadness, that's why you're playing up.'
"It's transformed every relationship in my life and I wish I was where I am now when I became a parent. I would have been so equipped."
Sue was so busy with her Corrie storylines in 2018 that she was forced to defer the final year of her four-year course.
Now she has her own clients, an Agony Aunt column and teamed with late This Morning legend Denise Robertson to help viewers with some of their problems.
Sue, who was born in Watford, moved to Manchester as a teenager and after studying drama at Manchester Polytechnic and began working in theatre, but qualified as a remedial massage therapist to make ends meet.
Before her big break on Key Mellor drama series Band of Gold, she also worked in the ITV officers choosing the contestants for shows such as Wheel of Fortune and Busman’s Holiday.
She still lives in Manchester with her partner Brian Owen, who she met on the set of Corrie when he was working as a lighting technician.
The actress also has a son, 24-year-old Elliot, with ex-husband James Quinn, who she was married to from 1993 to 2003.
The pair have actually been Corrie co-stars as James has had four different roles on the soap since 1989 - with his most recent and notable as DS Willlets.
Remarkably, Sue's ex-hubby played the police officer who investigated the murders of her evil on-screen husband Pat Phelan.
Back in 2018, the actress revealed her son Elliot had come back to spend some time living with her, explaining: "He moved out but he’s come back.
"He’s a boomerang child at the minute but I’m thoroughly enjoying it because he’s come back as an adult and he’s turned into a brilliant cook. The last two nights I’ve had dinners cooked for me when I’ve got home."
Sue has gone through some extremes while shooting Corrie - but nothing could have quite prepared her for the day she was knocked out for real in Eileen's kitchen.
Back in 2012, the actress was shooting a scene where she was supposed to be punched by firefighter boyfriend Paul Kershaw's wife Sue, played by Judy Holt.
"Judy’s character had Alzheimer’s. She punched me, misjudged it and I got knocked out cold on the floor," revealed Sue last year.
"I had to visit the hospital to get checked out – she was mortified. When it went out on screen they used the real sound from the punch on the show."
Sue had an even more traumatic experience on set in July 2019 when she was diagnosed with life-threatening sepsis after contracting a kidney infection she mistook for IBS and flu
Despite it being the hottest day of the year at 38 degrees, Sue’s body was even hotter - reaching almost 40 degrees, but her feet were turning blue.
"It was the hottest day of the year and I was on set with a hot water bottle, shaking. And Melanie Hill said ‘Sue, look at your feet!’ And my feet were just blue and purple and I had goosebumps on my arms," she explained on This Morning later that year.
Leaving the set early, Sue climbed into bed wrapped up in socks, leggings and a dressing gown as she tried to combat the chill, but her worried partner rushed home from his night shift because he could hear her "teeth chattering".
Sue admitted she still felt like a "fraud" when she rushed to hospital because she mistook sepsis for a combination of bad flu and IBS but her temperature was sky high.
Immediately after her sepsis diagnosis, Sue said she was put on fluids and antibiotics while doctors administered treatment within the hour of opportunity.
It took the actress a long time to recover and she was forced to slow down her career after taking a much-needed break from filming.
Sue added: "I've been very ill. I had to go into work for three days, six days away from transmission. It took me so long to learn the lines. It's taken everything so long to get back to normal."
There have also been times where Sue's work has impacted her personal life, particularly after she had filmed the gritty scenes where Phelan fell from a cliff edge.
The emotional toll from paying traumatised Eileen, who kicked Phelan into the sea and seemingly his death, left the actress feeling exhausted by the harrowing plot.
"To be honest I just collapsed when I got home. I shut the doors and didn’t want to see anybody," she explained, admitting she couldn't even talk to partner Brian the morning after the shoot.
She told him: "Please don’t speak to me. I can’t speak. I can’t actually form the words. Why don’t you go to the pub for an hour? In fact, why don’t you go to the pub for 12 hours."
There would certainly be no Eileen without Sue, but thankfully there are a lot of differences between the actress and her character.
"I didn’t base her on anyone in particular but I knew what type she was. I know her inside out and I instinctively know how she would behave in different situations," said Sue.
"I think I’m quite a strong woman like Eileen and loyal. But I’m definitely not as stupid and naive as she is. And I certainly would not have my house full of all the people that regularly lives at Eileen’s."
The actress has been on the cobbles for 21 years but has no intention of leaving anytime soon.
"I could imagine being on the cobbles when I’m in my 60s and 70s," she said in 2018.
"I do still have a hankering to do some theatre and I will definitely do that at some point, but I’m 54 now and I don’t have any ambition to go and do something else in the TV world. I love working here. I’m having a ball."
* Coronation Street airs Mondays and Wednesdays at 7.30pm and 8.30pm and Fridays at 7.30pm on ITV
