CORONATION Street star Paula Lane will be making her TV comeback next month after five years away from our screens in BBC’s Call the Midwife.
Mum-of-two Paula, 34, whose popular character Kylie Platt tragically died on the famous cobbles after being stabbed, filmed her guest role back in January.
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And although she was excited to be back doing TV she admitted that she suffered ‘separation anxiety’ from her family as she went off to film the guest role at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
Paula said: “There was a lot of separation anxiety going on when I went to film for Call the Midwife.
“I remember feeling quite strange, I should be feeling excited about this, what’s going on? And of course there was this underlying anxiety there about leaving my family.
“But I’ve got to say I just love TV. I just love the intimacy of it.”
Paul took the decision to quit the famous cobbles six years after she first burst onto our screens as the tearaway half-sister of Becky McDonald, played by Katherine Kelly, 41, in 2010.
Katherine was at the end of her final contract with the hit ITV soap but Paula will never forget their first scene together.
She said: “To be working with Katherine from the off was just something else. Her level, I remember just thinking, it was a really good connection that we had anyway, we were quite similar, we had a very similar work ethic.
“So when we had that first scene, a fight scene, with this massive plant pot, I couldn’t walk for days after that!
“They had to tone it down for airing. I remember it being quite brutal at the time, and it came across on screen that way.
“It was fierce, and we both don’t give up. I was left bruised. The war of these two sisters was great.
“There were no stunt stand-ins we both went full throttle on that! Katherine was at a bit of a crossroads when I joined as she’d already made the decision to leave.
“She’d completed her five years, she was probably really tried. You get to that point when you are leaving a soap that you kind of want to wrap it up.
“But she gave me so much advice and all our scenes together were brilliant, we just fired off each other.
“I’m so grateful that we got the chance to work with her in that capacity.”
Having spent the last five years doing theatre, Paula jumped at the chance of taking part in the new series of Call The Midwife which starts later this month.
Speaking to the Soap on The Box podcast she said: “I think the excitement that was buzzing around me when I first went on set, obviously under slightly different circumstances being behind masks and everything, I was just like, gosh.
“I remember being in the green room. I’d just watched the Christmas episode which was magical with my mum on Christmas Day.
“And I was sat with all these amazing actress like Linda Bassett and Jenny Agguter, I couldn’t believe it.
“You never lose that excitement and that is why I’m in this job and why I’m built for it.
“When you have those low times and there’s no work on the horizon, all that gets washed away as soon as you get a job and you’re on set.”
Looking back on the fame that came with her Corrie days Paula said: “I think it’s very personal it depends on your comfort zone how far you want to go. I got a taste of it quite quickly. Don’t get me wrong I’ve definitely dipped my toe into it.
“We did pictures of Penny when she was a baby. We didn’t do the wedding, yet I did the baby shoot and that was something I remember thinking is this a route I want to be going down?
“It didn’t do us any harm, it was fine. There are certain things that are not reversible and you can’t take them back.
“I’ve always been one of those people that has enjoyed that the paps don’t follow me everywhere.
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“I did do some shoots when I was younger, I was so naive. I was put in these, I can’t even call them clothing, these tiny shorts, I look back and I absolutely cringe, and think why did I do that?
“I was so young, you don’t think ahead. I was just starting out. I found that I was quite accommodating, really.
“Yeah we can do that. But the tricky think is when you do have a bit of assertiveness about you that kind of bit me on the backside as well.
“I remember this magazine they really went to town on me and were really horrible, saying that I was the last one standing at a party and I was on the phone to my agent when I should’ve been answering their questions.
“I was heartbroken. That wasn’t me, that’s why it was heartbreaking. That was my real taste of it. As long as I’m known for my work, and that’s what coming first, then I’m ok with.”
The new series of Call The Midwife returns to BBC One at 8pm on Sunday 18th April.
