Suranne Jones found fame as a knicker stitcher but her career has been anything but brief.
For many budding stars it does not get much better than a seat at a sewing machine in Underworld, Coronation Street ’s gossipy garment factory.
But for Suranne, 40, playing Weatherfield’s fiery gobby maneater Karen was a catapult to even greater heights.
She gripped the nation as a spurned GP intent on revenge and now may be on the brink of breaking into the really big time.
On Sunday night, she stars as pioneering landowner 19th century lesbian Anne Lister in the hotly anticipated BBC drama Gentleman Jack.
Like Suranne, Anne was successful, brave and inspiring.
Suranne Jones recalls dark days that led up to terrifying backstage collapse
And fans of the actress hope her turn as “the first modern lesbian” in the series, produced by US firm HBO, will be Suranne’s ticket to crack Hollywood.
Suranne won huge acclaim, and the 2016 best actress Bafta, for her calculating but vulnerable portrayal of scorned GP Gemma Foster in Doctor Foster.
In the aftermath of the show the career of her co-star Jodie Comer, who played her husband’s young lover, went stratospheric.
Jodie, 26, stars as glamorous but ruthless assassin Villanelle in the slick award-winning drama Killing Eve .
Suranne’s Bafta sits on her shelf next to her 2004 and 2005 British Soap Awards for playing Karen, who married Steve McDonald for a bet in 2001.
After numerous bust-ups with Steve plus drama and rows with bitchy schemer Tracy Barlow, Suranne left Corrie in 2004.
She has worked steadily ever since, including with Ray Winstone in crime drama Vincent and for five years as detective opposite Lesley Sharp in Sally Wainwright’s Scott & Bailey.
Suranne also showed her versatility with a 2011 appearance in Doctor Who, in the spoof cop series A Touch of Cloth, and as a headteacher in Vanity Fair.
But it was 2015’s Doctor Foster that took Suranne’s career to another level.
Ten million people tuned into the finale of season one – a dinner party from hell which saw her character expose the cheating of husband Simon, played by Bertie Carvel, with a far younger woman, Kate, played by Jodie. Riding on the success of the show, Suranne moved on to the London stage to star in the play Frozen and appeared to have the world at her feet.
But the actress recently revealed this was a period in which she became crippled by anxiety, which got so bad she collapsed.
After the backstage incident Suranne had to withdraw from the production, a harrowing story in which she played the mother of a girl who was abducted and murdered.
Her collapse was initially blamed on illness and the “deeply affecting” subject matter of the play, which explores child abuse.
But last week Suranne told of the toll taken by her mother’s death after suffering dementia plus the pressures of bringing up a young son and a punishing work schedule. Taking time out to recuperate and spend time with her family, Suranne is back with arguably her best performance yet as Yorkshirewoman Anne Lister.
She stars alongside Sophie Rundle but had to audition for the part in the series, also written by Sally Wainwright, because HBO did not know who she was.
Suranne Jones hires sex guru to teach her how to act out lesbian love scenes
Suranne spoke of her nerves before the read through. She said: “I remember Sally saying at my audition ‘I don’t know how I’m going to find someone who’s going to do this part because they need to be big, energetic, they need to be fun, they need to be dark, they need to be Heathcliffian.’
“She went on and on and then said ‘Anyway, do you want to have a read?’ I thought, how am I going to do all that? I don’t know if I’ve done it but Sally is happy enough and that’s good.”
The eight-part drama about inspirational Anne is based on the four million words in her extensive secret diaries. Some of the content was so explosive that it had to be written in code to hide her lesbianism.
And Suranne said there was no doubting her commitment to the role.
The star got into her part by growing her armpit hair for eight months – even though it never featured in the drama. She said: “Anne played with gender her whole life and was gender non-conforming in so many different ways.
“I wore men’s shoes, men’s gaiters, men’s underwear and, of course, the top hat, which is very masculine.
“I couldn’t do my nails and I had to grow my armpit hair. I did go quite method with that. And then, b****r it, there’s no shot of my armpit hair.
“You see half a second of it and so I’m like, ‘Right, I’m not doing that again.’”
Filming at Anne’s former residence, Shibden Hall in Halifax, helped transport Suranne back to the time when she wrote her diaries.
She said: “It still blows my mind when I say that we filmed at Shibden. So when I’m walking in Anne Lister’s footsteps I am literally walking into her house, up her stairs, eating in her dining room.
“I am doing business deals where she did business deals, surveying the same land, and walking where she walked.”
Suranne, born Sarah, took her great-grandmother’s name when she discovered there was already an actress called Sarah Jones. Before hitting the big time she was part of Oldham Theatre Workshop, where she befriended Antony Cotton, Sean in Coronation Street.
In 2015 Suranne married writer Laurence Akers, who she met at ex-Corrie star Sally Lindsay’s wedding in 2013.
They were engaged after just six weeks of dating and have a three-year-old son.
Playing Anne Lister could be a huge step in Suranne’s career. And she knows it. She said: “I’ve made a decision that I want to go after roles like this.”
