It’s hard to believe that Jane Danson has been in Corrie for twenty years as she looks as though she hasn’t aged a bit.
And as we all know, playing Leanne Battersby she has proved to be a rather fabulous actress.
Since her character arrived on the cobbles in 1997, she has been a prostitute, been hooked to drugs, had affairs and has even been beaten up with by her own son.
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While Leanne as a feisty minx, she says she is nothing like the troublesome and confident girl she plays.
She says that when she first started out on the show she found the sudden fame very hard to deal with.
In fact, she says she was overwhelmed and scared by it all that she hid herself in her house, afraid to hit the streets.
“I couldn’t cope with it,” Jane explains. “I had this amazing job, and by 19 had my own little house, but I just sat inside.
“I’d be scared of someone throwing a drink in my face. Coping with the attention was terrifying.
“So I just sort of stayed at home, ate biscuits and put on a stone.
“It was good in one sense. You are young and earning money, there are parties, drink and other things.
“So my relationship with my barrel of biscuits was pretty okay!”
But Jane says she eventually found her confidence when she met her childhood crush Robert Beck (star of Brookside and Emmerdale) at the British Soap Awards back in 1999.
“He had been there and done it and said it would be okay,” Jane told the Mirror.
“If I am brutally honest, I still don’t like being centre of attention. I just see myself as a normal person. I only joined Twitter as someone else was pretending to be me!”
Asked if she could see herself in Corrie for another 20 years, she said, “As long as viewers want me, then why not!”
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She added: “You can’t take anything for granted. The 18-year-old wanted to conquer the acting world.
“Now I kind of realise I have conquered the world I wanted to conquer. I’ve got two great kids, a gorgeous husband, and a fantastic job. You can’t ask much more.”